The rise and fall of the DPJ: Gerald Curtis (25)

The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) came to power in August 2009, having won a solid majority of seats in that summer's lower house election. It was the first time any party other than the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had secured a majority since the LDP was formed in 1955. As it turned out, I knew many DPJ politicians from long before the party was formed. One of them, Masayoshi Takemura, broke away from the LDP in 1993 and founded the New Party Sakigake, whose leaders would a few years later be at the nucleus of the DPJ.