Minority government in the context of "Democratic Progressive Party"

The Government of Japan is the central government of Japan. It consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and functions under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan. Japan is a unitary state, containing forty-seven administrative divisions, with the emperor as its head of state. His role is ceremonial and he has no powers related to the Government. Instead, it is the Cabinet, comprising the prime minister and the ministers of state, that directs and controls the government and the civil service. The Cabinet has the executive power and is formed by the prime minister, who is the head of government. The Prime Minister is nominated by the National Diet and appointed to office by the Emperor. The current cabinet is the Takaichi Cabinet, which is led by prime minister Sanae Takaichi, who assumed office on 21 October 2025. The country has had a Liberal Democratic minority government since 2025.

The National Diet is the legislature, the organ of the Legislative branch. The Diet is bicameral, consisting of two houses with the House of Councilors being the upper house, and the House of Representatives being the lower house. The members of both houses of the Diet are directly elected by the people, who are the source of sovereignty. The Diet is defined as the supreme organ of sovereignty in the Constitution. The Supreme Court and other lower courts make up the Judicial branch and have all the judicial powers in the state. The Supreme Court has ultimate judicial authority to interpret the constitution and the power of judicial review. The judicial branch is independent from the executive and the legislative branches. Judges are nominated or appointed by the Cabinet and never removed by the executive or the legislature except during impeachment.

The Cabinet of Japan (内閣, Naikaku; Japanese pronunciation: [naꜜi.ka.kɯ]) is the chief executive body of the government of Japan. It consists of the prime minister, who is appointed by the Emperor after being nominated by the National Diet, in addition to up to nineteen other members, called ministers of state. The current cabinet, the Takaichi Cabinet, was formed on 21 October 2025 and is led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. The country has had a Liberal Democratic minority government since 2025.

The prime minister is nominated by the National Diet, while the remaining ministers are appointed and dismissed by the prime minister. The Cabinet is collectively responsible to the National Diet and must resign if a motion of no confidence is adopted by the National Diet.

A motion or vote of no confidence (or the inverse, a motion or vote of confidence) is a motion and corresponding vote thereon in a deliberative assembly (usually a legislative body) as to whether an officer (typically an executive) is deemed fit to continue to occupy their office. The no-confidence vote is a defining constitutional element of a parliamentary system, in which the government's/executive's mandate rests upon the continued support (or at least non-opposition) of the majority in the legislature. Systems differ in whether such a motion may be directed against the prime minister, against the government (this could be a majority government or a minority government/coalition government), against individual cabinet ministers, against the cabinet as a whole, or some combination of the above.

A censure motion is different from a no-confidence motion. In a parliamentary system, a vote of no confidence leads to the resignation of the prime minister and cabinet, or, depending on the constitutional procedure at hand, a snap election to potentially replace the government.

A majority government is a government by one or more governing parties that hold an absolute majority of seats in a legislature. Such a government can consist of one party that holds a majority on its own, or be a coalition government of multiple parties. This is as opposed to a minority government, where the government does not have a majority, and needs to cooperate with opposition parties to get legislation passed. A government majority determines the balance of power. A government is not a majority government if it only has a majority when counting parties outside the government that have a confidence agreement with it.

A majority government is usually assured of having its legislation passed and rarely if ever, has to fear being defeated in parliament, a state also known as a working majority. In contrast, a minority government must constantly bargain for support from other parties in order to pass legislation and avoid being defeated on motions of no confidence. Single-party majority governments tend to be formed in the aftermath of strong election performances.

In parliamentary democracies, especially those based on the Westminster system, confidence and supply is an arrangement under which a minority government (one which does not control a majority in the legislature) receives the support of one or more parties or independent MPs on confidence votes and the state budget ("supply"). On issues other than those outlined in the confidence and supply agreement, non-government partners to the agreement are not bound to support the government on any given piece of legislation.

A coalition government is a more formal arrangement than a confidence-and-supply agreement in which junior parties (i.e., parties other than the largest) are generally expected to hold the government whip on passing legislation and formally participate in the government, with members holding office in the cabinet and ministerial roles.

A hung parliament is a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and Australia to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition has an absolute majority of legislators (commonly known as members or seats) in a parliament or other legislature. The terms is applied to legislatures operating under the Westminster system and typically employing majoritarian electoral systems.

This situation is also known as a balanced parliament, or—for local government in the United Kingdom—a parliament under no overall control (NOC). A hung parliament may result in a coalition government, a minority government, or a snap election if a government cannot be formed.

The 2017 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 8 June 2017, two years after the previous general election in 2015; it was the first since 1992 to be held on a day that did not coincide with any local elections. The governing Conservative Party led by Prime Minister Theresa May remained the largest single party in the House of Commons but lost its small overall majority, resulting in the formation of a Conservative minority government with a confidence and supply agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland.

The Conservative Party, which had governed as a senior coalition partner from 2010 and as a single-party majority government from 2015, was led by May as Prime Minister. It was defending a working majority of 17 seats against the opposition Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn. It was the first general election to be contested by either May or Corbyn as party leader; May had succeeded David Cameron following his resignation as prime minister the previous summer, while Corbyn had succeeded Ed Miliband after he resigned following Labour's failure to win the general election two years earlier.