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In addition, Komeito has for a long time emphasised the need for a shift in
focus from gross national product (GNP) to gross national welfare (GNW).
This more concretely has meant continuous attempts to bring Japan
s welfare
spending closer to that of Europe in order to cover housing, amenities, edu-
cation, health, labour and subsistence. It has also continued to emphasise
further support for small and medium-sized businesses. On the other hand, it
abandoned its call for the nationalisation of major industries, coming to
favour more private initiatives, liberalisation of markets, and some privatisa-
tion of national institutions such as the postal services. The change in economic
position re
'
ects the wider general shift that took place in the 1980s and 1990s.
The reforms advocated by Koizumi at the beginning of the 2000s, while gen-
erally seen as a call for liberalising markets, also ended some of the special
interest that existed through
(often corrupt) economic relations between
the bureaucracy, big business and politicians, epitomised in the postal services
organisations (y
-
sei) and quasi-public-driven construction projects. Seemingly,
changing ideologies caused tension among Komeito supporters, especially
when the party joined forces with the LDP in a coalition government in 1999.
Komeito clearly had an impact on the direction of policies during that period.
Until then, the times when Komeito most felt its presence were during an
informal coalition with the LDP in 1989
'
cosy
'
93 (Metraux 1994; Christensen
2000), and during its participation as part of the ruling coalition government
in 1993
-
-
94.
Komeito had previously worked closely with the Democratic Socialist Party
and JSP throughout the 1970s and 1980s, although various di
culties arose
(see Christensen 2000). The LDP was defeated for the
first time in the Lower
House election of July 1993, when it had to concede to a coalition of seven
other parties and one Upper House group. The
first non-LDP government of
which Komeito was a part was formed in August 1993. Con
icts soon
appeared between the various parties and personalities, and the LDP returned
to power by forming a coalition with the newly formed New Party Harbinger
and the unlikely candidate of the JSP. The main achievement of the 1993
94
non-LDP government in its short life that ended less than a year later was to
change the electoral system for the House of Representatives. Ozawa Ichir
-
had been the major political
-
figure behind this as he was behind the Shin-
shint
-
(New Frontier Party), which subsequently formed. As a gathering of
non-LDP, non-socialist parties, it did well in the election for the House of
Councillors held in July 1995, but as the previous non-LDP government
coalition,
erences in policy agendas and personalities.
Through the short taste of the precarious situation of coalition politics,
it clashed over di
culty of maintaining alliances based primarily
on opposition to the LDP. Shinshint
-
, the party, which was
rst promoted as
the
, was dissolved in December 1997.
While the LDP quickly regained power in 1994, the break-up of the 1955
system in 1993 invited considerable change in Japanese politics. The weaken-
ing of the hitherto dominant LDP and the near-collapse of the second biggest
'
new hope of Japan
'
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