New Party Daichi
|
New Party Daichi 新党大地
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Leader | Muneo Suzuki |
| Founded | August 18, 2005 |
| Ideology |
Conservatism Regionalism |
| Representatives |
0 / 480
|
| Councillors |
0 / 242
|
| Hokkaidō assembly members |
0 / 104
|
| Municipal assembly members in Hokkaidō |
8 / 2,361
|
| Website | |
| www.daichi.gr.jp | |
New Party Daichi (新党大地 Shintō Daichi) is a political party formed on August 18, 2005. It is mostly active in Hokkaidō, Japan's northernmost and largest prefecture. The party is headed by former Liberal Democratic Party member Muneo Suzuki. Suzuki resigned from the LDP in June 2002 after being arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes. He was convicted of bribery and other charges the next year, and announced the party's creation while released on bail. He was critical of Junichiro Koizumi's policies and postal privatization. The party's latest Diet member was Suzuki's daughter Takako Suzuki in the House of Representatives (Hokkaidō proportional) until the 2014 election when she ran on the DPJ list and New Party Daichi did not compete on its own. She has left the DPJ again in 2016.
Shinto Daichi is categorized as a political organization (seiji dantai) because it does not fulfill the criteria necessary to be recognized as a political party (seitō) under laws regulating party funding and elections.
In 2005, the party fielded one candidate from a single-seat district while Suzuki headed a roster of three candidates for the proportional representation constituency. In the 2005 and 2009 general elections of the lower house, Muneo Suzuki was elected to a proportional seat in the Hokkaidō bloc. In 2010, when the Supreme Court ultimately confirmed his conviction, Suzuki had to give up his seat to serve his prison term. He was replaced in the House of Representatives by proportional runner-up Takahiro Asano, but remained party leader. In the 2007 regular election of the upper house, the party endorsed independent Ainu activist Kaori Tahara in Hokkaido (two-member district) who lost to the two major party candidates. New Party Daichi did not contest the 2010 upper house election. In 2013, it fielded two prefectural (Hokkaido & Osaka) and nine proportional candidates, but failed to win a seat (14.7% of votes/rank 3 for Takahiro Asano in two-member Hokkaido, 1.5%/rank 7 for Mika Yoshiba in four-member Osaka, 1.0%/no seat for New Party Daichi in the 48-member proportional election).
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