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Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)

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Shinzo Abe, the leader of the LDP and the former prime minister of Japan.
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The Liberal Democratic Party (自由民主党, Jiyū-Minshutō), usually abbreviated to LDP (自民党, Jimintō), is a conservative party that is Japanese nationalist and right-wing populist in Japan. The party is made up of an enormous number of factions, but it is largely divided into "conservative essence" (保守本流, Hoshu honryū) and "conservative discharge" (保守傍流, Hoshu bōryū). They ruled for almost 54 years! Continuously![note 1][note 2] The post-war 1955 SystemWikipedia in many ways deeply ingrained the party into the fabric of the Japanese political establishment, favoured in the 1950s over leftist opposition parties early in the Cold War, and it would take until the early 1990s, after the popping of the Japanese economic bubble, until this party system could be overcome - only for a new period of LDP to ensue after a fractitious opposition-lead coalition collapsed. The LDP is currently Japan's ruling party.

Originally, it was a center-right ("conservative essence") party with a strong bureaucratic mindset, but in the 21st century, moderates fell and far-rightists ("conservative discharge") took control of the party, a process that intensified after the LDP fell into its first period of extended opposition from 2009-2012. Former Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe[note 3], belongs to the party and is so far-right that Steve Bannon once called him "a great hero to the grassroots, the populist, and the nationalist movement throughout the world."[1] The party's far-right tendencies have become so serious that it can no longer be considered center-right.[2][3][4]

The party's biggest benefactor and political group, Nippon Kaigi, is at the center of controversy over ultra-nationalism, neo-fascism, anti-Korean[note 4] tendencies and fabrication of history such as denying atrocities committed by Japan.

LDP advocates traditional culture based on Confucianism, Buddhism and Shinto.

See also

Notes

  1. You know, except those 11 months in 1993 and 1994
  2. The only party in a democratic nation to beat them in terms of longevity of reign is Mexico's PRI that - as chance would have it - returned to power again after a brief absence from it.
  3. Abe's creed is the strongest historical revisionist, denialist, ultra-nationalist right-wing populism in the post-war Japanese conservative administrations, and his wife is suspected of sponsoring radical anti-Korean kindergartens and his grandfather is Nobusuke KishiWikipedia, a World War II first class war criminal. Before that, Japan's conservative regimes also had nationalist tendencies, but since the 1960s, few governments have been as far-right as Abe.
  4. Anti-Korean sentiment is common among Japanese nationalists. And this includes both South and North Korea.

References

  1. [1], Ex-adviser Steve Bannon says Abe was 'Trump before Trump,' urges him to play hardball with China, Japan Times, 8 March 2019.
  2. Wesley Yee (January 2018). "Making Japan Great Again: Japan's Liberal Democratic Party as a Far Right Movement". The University of San Francisco.
  3. "Japan's ruling party under fire over links to far-right extremists". The Guardian. 13 October 2014.
  4. "Beautiful Harmony: Political Project Behind Japan's New Era Name – Analysis". eurasia review. 16 July 2019. The shifting dynamics around the new era name (gengō 元号) offers an opportunity to understand how the domestic politics of the LDP’s project of ultra-nationalism is shaping a new Japan and a new form of nationalism.