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
Democratic Party (Japan, 2016) Democratic Party (Japan, 2016) The , abbreviated as DP, was a political party in Japan. It was the largest opposition political party in Japan from 2016 until its marginalization in the House of Representatives in 2017. The party was founded on 27 March 2016 from the merger of the Democratic Party of Japan and the Japan Innovation Party. The majority of the party split on 28 September 2017, before the 2017 general election, with many its members contesting the election as candidates for the Party of Hope, Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan or as party members without nomination. On 7