1955 System in the context of "Japan Socialist Party"

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP; Japanese: 自由民主党, romanized: Jiyū-Minshutō), also known as Jimintō (自民党), is a major conservative and nationalist political party in Japan. Since its foundation in 1955, the LDP has been in power almost continuously—a period called the 1955 System—except from 1993 to 1996, and again from 2009 to 2012.

The LDP was formed in 1955 as a merger of two conservative parties, the Liberal Party and the Japan Democratic Party, and was initially led by prime minister Ichirō Hatoyama. The LDP supported Japan's alliance with the United States and fostered close links between Japanese business and government, playing a major role in the country's economic miracle from the 1960s to early 1970s and subsequent stability under prime ministers including Hayato Ikeda, Eisaku Satō, Kakuei Tanaka, Takeo Fukuda, and Yasuhiro Nakasone. Scandals and economic difficulties led to the LDP losing power in 1993 and 1994, and governing under a non-LDP prime minister from 1994 before regaining power in 1996. In 1999, the LDP entered into a coalition with Komeito.

General elections were held in Japan on 18 July 1993 to elect the 511 members of the House of Representatives. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had been in power since 1955, lost their majority in the House. An eight-party coalition government was formed and headed by Morihiro Hosokawa, the leader of the Japan New Party (JNP). The election result was profoundly important to Japan's domestic and foreign affairs.

It marked the first time under the 1955 System that the ruling coalition had been defeated, being replaced by a rainbow coalition of liberals, centrists and reformists. The change in government also marked a change in generational politics and political conduct; the election was widely seen as a backlash against corruption, pork-barrel spending and an inflated bureaucracy. Proposed electoral reforms also held much influence over the election. Eleven months after the election, with the electoral reform legislation that was its raison d'être passed, the eight-party coalition collapsed. This was the last general election to use the single non-transferable vote electoral system, with the 1994 electoral reform efforts changing the system to parallel voting starting with the next election.

Nobusuke Kishi (岸 信介, Kishi Nobusuke; 13 November 1896 – 7 August 1987) was a Japanese bureaucrat and politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. He is remembered for his exploitative economic management of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in China in the 1930s, imprisonment as a suspected war criminal following World War II, and provocation of the massive Anpo protests as prime minister, retrospectively receiving the nickname "Monster of the Shōwa era" (昭和の妖怪; Shōwa no yōkai). Kishi was the founder of the Satō–Kishi–Abe dynasty in Japanese politics, with his younger brother Eisaku Satō and his grandson Shinzo Abe both later serving as prime ministers of Japan.

Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Kishi graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1920. He rose through the ranks at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and during the 1930s led the industrial development of Manchukuo, where he exploited Chinese slave labor. Kishi served in the wartime cabinet of Hideki Tōjō as minister of commerce and industry from 1941 to 1943 and vice minister of munitions from 1943 to 1944. At the end of the war in 1945, Kishi was imprisoned as a suspected Class A war criminal, but U.S. occupation authorities did not charge, try, or convict him, and released him in 1948 during the Reverse Course. At the end of the occupation in 1952, Kishi was de-purged, enabling his election to the National Diet in 1953. With overt and covert U.S. support, he consolidated Japanese conservatives against perceived threats from the Japan Socialist Party, and in 1955 was instrumental in forming the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Kishi was thus key in establishing the "1955 System" under which the LDP remains Japan's dominant party.

Conservatism in Japan (Japanese: 保守主義, romanized: hoshu shugi) is the dominant ideology of the country's post-war politics, notably through the establishment of the "1955 System" under the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Since its inception in 1955, the LDP has been a dominant force in Japanese politics, embodying the party's conservative policies and shaping the country's governance for much of the post-war era.

Mainstream contemporary Japanese conservatives largely believe in stances such as revising the Constitution and a pro-United States foreign policy, while some hold positions including calls for remilitarization and a stronger foreign policy against communist North Korea and China and sometimes South Korea and Russia. Additionally, radical conservatives express anti-LGBT and anti-immigration sentiments as well as engaging in denial of Japanese war crimes prior to and during World War II.

The 1994 electoral reform in Japan was a change from the previous single non-transferable vote (SNTV) system of multi-member districts (MMD) to a mixed electoral system of single-member districts (SMD) with plurality voting and a party list system with proportional representation. The reform had three main objectives: change the one-party dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from the previous 1955 system to a two-party system with alternation in power, reduce the cost of elections and campaigns, and change campaign focus from individual-centered to party-centered.