The New Party Nippon (新党日本 Shintō Nippon) is a Japanese political party formed on August 21, 2005. The party is headed by the former Nagano governor Yasuo Tanaka, and includes Diet members Kōki Kobayashi (deputy leader), Takashi Aoyama, Makoto Taki, and Hiroyuki Arai, who left the Liberal Democratic Party in opposition to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s postal privatization drive.
The new party is seen as aiming to appeal toward urban voters, while the People's New Party, formed around the same time by other LDP rebels, has a more rural support base.
In the Japan general election, 2005, only one member, Makoto Taki, was elected (to a proportional seat in Kinki), with Kobayashi and Aoyama, among others, failing to be elected in either single-seat or proportional districts.
On July 2007, Hiroyuki Arai and Minoru Taki left the party.
In the Japanese House of Councillors election, 2007, Yasuo Tanaka, the President, was elected. He is the only party member to currently have a seat in the Diet of Japan.
Read more about New Party Nippon: Motions Against Yoshihiko Noda
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“I am proud to be a member of a party that opens its doors to all men—and closes its hearts to none.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)