Political parties of the Empire of Japan public assembly, the press and on political discussion. The Meiji government had come to power by an elite of "samurai" from certain clans ("hanbatsu") and the "genrō" felt threatened by anything looking ever remotely like republicanism or democracy. During this period, Itagaki Taisuke and Ōkuma Shigenobu were leading figures in the legitimization of political parties. Itagaki created Japan's first political party, the Aikoku Kōtō, in 1873 in Tokyo to petition for an elected assembly, and a similar regional party based in Osaka, the Aikokusha. These groups were the basis of the Jiyutō (Liberal Party), founded in 1881 as Japan’s first
Social Democratic Party (Japan) 1996. Most of the other parties from the anti-LDP coalition forced back into opposition, united to form the New Frontier Party, overtaking the JSP as second largest political party in Japan. In the 1995 election, the JSP lost the election. In January 1996, the New Socialist Party split off, Murayama resigned as Prime Minister, and the JSP changed its name from the Japan Socialist Party to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) as an interim party for forming a new party. However, a movement for transforming the SDP into a new "social-democratic and liberal" party was unsuccessful. Under Murayama's successor Ryūtarō