ABSTRACT
In many respects the Komeito, or Clean Government party, is the anomaly within the Japanese political party system. It is the only religious party in modem Japanese history, and it is the most disciplined party organization in Japanese politics. At the Komeito’s eighteenth national convention held in early December 1970, party chairman Takeiri Yoshikatsu spoke to the party activists and stressed the separation of the Komeito from its founding organization, the Soka Gakkai. The Soka Gakkai was created on November 18, 1930, by Makiguchi Tsunesaburo, a school teacher in Tokyo, who sought to reform the nature of Japanese society by restructuring the nation’s education system. In August 1957, Soka Gakkai President Toda Josei wrote a series of articles on the theory of O-Butsu Myogo, which postulated the combination of secular government and Buddhism into a single entity of “Buddhist Democracy.” Of all the political parties currently operating in Japan, the Komeito probably has the strongest organizational structure.
