Japan Restoration Party

The , also referred to in English as the Japan Restoration Association, was a Japanese political party. It was launched on 12 September 2012 and gained official recognition on 28 September 2012. The party grew from the regional Osaka Restoration Association, headed by Tōru Hashimoto, Mayor of Osaka, and Ichirō Matsui, Governor of Osaka Prefecture. On 17 November 2012 Hashimoto and Shintaro Ishihara, leader of the Sunrise Party, announced a merger of their parties to create a "third force" to contest the general election of December 2012. The merged organization, which retained the name "Japan Restoration Party", was at that time Japan's only national political party based outside Tokyo. After the election it had 54 seats in the lower house and 9 members in the upper house. On May 28, 2014, co-leaders Hashimoto and Ishihara agreed to split the party after many internal differences, including disagreement over a proposed merger with the Unity Party. As a result, Ishihara's group split off from the JRP and formed the Party for Future Generations. Later, Hashimoto and Kenji Eda of the Unity Party agreed to merge their parties. The JRP was subsequently dissolved and the result of the merger was the formation of the Japan Innovation Party. Party launch and early days National political parties in Japan require a minimum of five Diet members to be recognized, and in 2012 the party gained seven sitting Diet members through defections from other parties. On 28 September 2012 an application for party recognition was submitted to the Ministry of the Interior through the Osaka prefectural electoral board. This was accepted and the party was officially launched. The Osaka Restoration Association, also headed by Hashimoto and Matsui, was placed under the umbrella of the new national party.