Morihiro Hosokawa - Prime Minister

Prime Minister

In the summer of 1993, in a change very few had foreseen even a year earlier, the LDP lost its majority in the Diet for the first time in thirty-eight years and was replaced by an eight-party coalition government which promised a series of social, political, and economic reforms. Excluding the JCP, the coalition was backed by all of the former opposition parties, which included the newly formed JNP, the Japan Socialist Party, the Japan Renewal Party (Shinseito), Komeito, the Democratic Socialist Party, the Socialist Democratic Federation, the RENGO and the New Party Sakigake. Hosokawa, one of the major voices in forming the coalition, was chosen as the new Prime Minister.

One of the first things the newly elected PM did was to say what no other Japanese leader, including the Emperor, had said for forty-eight years. In his 15 August 1993 speech at the annual war memorial services, he publicly acknowledged that World War II was a "war of aggression, a mistaken war" and expressed responsibility and condolences to the war victims and survivors, in Japan, its Asian neighbors, and the rest of the world.

On 6 November 1993, he visited South Korea. On 19 March 1994, he visited China, and the two governments signed an agreement of cooperation in environmental protection.

Although his coalition managed to secure passage of legislation to reform the electoral system in 1994, the subject of a long-running national debate, Hosokawa’s run as PM was short lived. Under allegations that he had misused personal funds in the 1980s, he was forced to resign later that year, just eight months after taking office. After his resignation, the coalition was taken over by the Shinseito president Tsutomu Hata.