ABSTRACT
After a post-war record of 38 years of continuous rule, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was finally unseated in the 1993 general election. The Japanese electorate did indeed vote for change but the felling of the LDP was not accomplished by an electoral earthquake analogous to the 1992 Italian election. There were those inside the LDP, however, who did not like the idea of any coalition. Led by secretary-general Kajiyama, they argued that the LDP should try to establish a one-party minority government and go into opposition if that were not possible. The scandals and the failures to address the problems seen as causing them produced a series of reform movements within both the LDP and the opposition and even in cross-party reform groups. The non-LDP, non-communist forces had a majority of 260 seats to the LDP's 233. However, the non-LDP forces were divided into five major groupings and a total of eight parties.
