The Kōmeitō (), also known as Kōmei Seiji Renmei, the Kōmei Party, and Clean Government Party (CGP), was a political party in Japan, initiated by Daisaku Ikeda, and described by various authors as the "political arm" of Soka Gakkai. Kōmeitō was considered a centrist, as well as centre-left, political party of the progressive camp until the 1990s. Its successor party Komeito had become politically closer to the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and became a centre-to-centre-right conservative party. This ended in 2026 when Komeito merged with the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan to become the Centrist Reform Alliance.

History The party was established in January 1962 as the Kōmei Seiji Renmei (Clean Government League) by the Sōka Gakkai, an organization that promoted Nichiren Buddhism. Running as independents, three members of the Sōka Gakkai had been elected to the House of Councillors in the 1956 elections, with the 1959 elections seeing nine members elected. It also had several members elected to local assemblies. In 1957, a group of Young Men's Division members campaigning for a Gakkai candidate in an Osaka House of Councillors by-election were arrested for distributing money, cigarettes, and caramels at supporters' residences, in violation of elections law, and on July 3 of that year, at the beginning of an event memorialized as the "Osaka Incident", Daisaku Ikeda was arrested in Osaka. He was taken into custody in his capacity as Sōka Gakkai's Youth Division Chief of Staff for overseeing activities that constituted violations of elections law. He spent two weeks in jail and appeared in court forty-eight times before he was cleared of all charges in January 1962.

Amongst its policies, the new party supported the 1947 constitution and opposed nuclear weapons. Headed by Harashima Kōji. In the July 1962 elections the new party won nine seats in the House of Councillors.Haruhiro Fukui (1985) Political parties of Asia and the Pacific, Greenwood Press, pp459–460 On 17 November 1964 the party was renamed Kōmeitō. In 1968, fourteen of its members were convicted of forging absentee ballots in Shinjuku, and eight were sentenced to prison for electoral fraud. In the 1960s it was widely criticized for violating the separation of church and state, and in February 1970 all three major Japanese newspapers printed editorials demanding that the party reorganize. It eventually broke apart based on promises to segregate from Soka Gakkai.Ikuo Kabashima, Gill Steel Changing Politics in Japan 2012 Page 38 "Fragmented Opposition: Other Parties Other smaller parties include Komeito (the party officially became known as New Komeito in 1998), a party that Soka Gakkai formed in 1964 from its precursor, the Komei Political League."John McCormick Comparative Politics in Transition 2011- Page 179 "Clean Government Party (CGP) (Komeito) New Komeito is the political wing of Soka Gakkai, Japan's largest lay Buddhist ..."Jeffrey Haynes Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics Page 17 "Talking to young Japanese people one normally gets very little sense of enthusiasm about Buddhism, and few people seem to take seriously the notion that the New Komeito Party is a Buddhist political party. The Komeito or 'Clean Government Party' ..."

In 1969, the Kōmeitō became the third political party in Japan. In the 1980s discovered that many Soka Gakkai members were rewarding acquaintances with presents in return for Komeito votes, and that Okinawa residents had changed their addresses to elect Komeito politicians. It was also revealed that while the party was technically separate from the Soka Gakkai, monetary donations made that were tax exempt were being funneled into funding for the Kōmeitō party as revealed by an expelled Kōmeitō member of the Tokyo municipal assembly. It was usually supportive of the Japan Socialist Party, and opposed the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party), the major ruling party at that time. Ideologically, Kōmeitō proposed a mild form of what it called "humanitarian socialism", which its one-time secretary general Hiroshi Hojo defined as "a Buddhist version of Christian Democratic socialism".The New Republic – Volume 154, Issues 1-13, 1966, P.22

Kōmeitō did quite well, and in 1993, when the LDP was for the first time declared an opposition party, the Kōmeitō became one of the ruling parties, headed by the liberal Japan New Party, but which also included the Democratic Socialist Party, Japan Renewal Party, the New Party Sakigake, and the Japan Socialist Party. In 1994, the latter two parties left the coalition, and in July they took over the rule, making another coalition with the LDP. The Kōmeitō was again thrown into opposition. On December 5, 1994, The Kōmeitō split into two parties. The Lower House chairs and some of Upper House chairs formed Kōmeitō New Party, and five days later joined into the New Frontier Party. The others, i.e. local assembly members and the rest of the Upper House chairs, formed Kōmei and independent friend of the New Frontier Party. In 1998, the New Frontier Party dissolved, and former Kōmeitō members formed New Peace Party and Reform Club. They merged with Kōmei in the same year and then became known as the NKP (New Kōmeitō Party). The NKP adopted a more conservative agenda than the former Kōmeitō and in 1999 they supported the ruling party, the LDP.Hiroshi Aruga, "Sōka Gakkai and Japanese politics", in Global citizens, the Sōka Gakkai Buddhist Movement in the world

Leaders No. Name (Birth–death) Constituency / title Term of office Prime Minister (term) Status Took office Left office 1 Kōji Harashima (1909–1964) Cllr fornational district 17 November 1964 9 December 1964 Satō (1964–72) rowspan="16" 2 Takehisa Tsuji (1918–2012) Cllr fornational district 9 December 1964 13 February 1967 3 Yoshikatsu Takeiri (1926–2023) Rep for Tokyo 10th 13 February 1967 5 December 1986Tanaka K. (1972–74)Miki (1974–76)Fukuda T. (1976–78)Ōhira (1978–80)Ito M. (1980) (acting)Suzuki Z. (1980–82) Nakasone (1982–87) 4 Junya Yano (b. 1932) Rep for Ōsaka 4th 5 December 1986 21 May 1989 Takeshita (1987–89) 5 Kōshirō Ishida (1930–2006) Rep for Aichi 6th 21 May 1989 5 December 1994Uno (1989)Kaifu (1989–91)Miyazawa (1991–93) Hosokawa (1993–94) rowspan="2" Hata (1994)Murayama (1994–96)

Election results House of Representatives + House of Representatives Election Leader No. ofcandidates Seats Position Constituency votes PR Block votes Status No. ± Share No. Share No. Share 1967 Takehisa Tsuji 32 5.1% 4th 2,472,371 5.4% 1969 Yoshikatsu Takeiri 76 22 9.6% 3rd 5,124,666 10.9% 1972 59 18 5.9% 4th 4,436,755 8.5% 1976 84 26 10.7% 3rd 6,177,300 10.9% 1979 64 2 11.1% 3rd 5,282,682 9.78% 1980 64 24 6.4% 3rd 5,329,942 9.03% 1983 59 25 11.3% 3rd 5,745,751 10.12% 1986 61 2 10.9% 3rd 5,701,277 9.43% 1990 Kōshirō Ishida 58 11 8.7% 3rd 5,242,675 7.98% 1993 54 6 9.9% 4th 5,114,351 8.14%

House of Councillors + House of Councillors Election Leader Seats Nationwide Prefecture Status Total Contested Number % Number % 1965 Yoshikatsu Takeiri 5,097,682 13.7% 1,910,975 5.1% 1968 6,656, 771 15.5% 2,632,528 6.1% 1971 5,626,293 14.1% 1,391,855 3.5% 1974 6,360,419 12.1% 6,732,937 12.6% 1977 7,174,459 14.2% 3,206,719 6.1% 1980 6,669,387 11.9% 2,817,379 4.9% 1983 7,314,465 15.7% 3,615,995 7.8% 1986 7,438,501 12.97% 2,549,037 4.40% 1989 Kōshirō Ishida 6,097,971 10.86% 2,900,947 5.10% 1992 6,415,503 14.27% 3,550,060 7.82%

See also Japan Socialist Party Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) Komeito Politics of Japan Reformist party (Japan) (Before 1990s) Social Democratic Party (Japan) Sōka Gakkai

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