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TheLiberal Party (Japanese:自由党,Jiyūtō) was a political party inJapan. The party had putpro-Americanism and economic reconstruction as its main policies.^[3]

The party was established in March 1950 as a merger of theDemocratic Liberal Party led by Prime MinisterShigeru Yoshida (which held a majority in theHouse of Representatives) and 22 MPs from the Alliance faction of theDemocratic Party, although Alliance leaderTakeru Inukai did not join the new party.^[4] In theApril 1950 House of Councillors elections, it won 52 of the 132 seats.

In August 1952,Ichirō Hatoyama was allowed to rejoin the party, having been banned from politics as a result of thepurge. A former leader of the original post-warLiberal Party, he expected Yoshida to allow him to take over the party again, but was rebuffed. This led to increasing tensions within the party, splitting it into Hatoyama and Yoshida factions.

Although the party won a majority of seats in the House of Representatives in theOctober 1952 elections, winning 242 of the 466 seats, Yoshida's government lost a vote of no-confidence in March 1953, leading toearly elections. Prior to polling day, the Hatoyama faction broke away to formLiberal Party–Hatoyama, which won 35 seats in the elections as the Liberal Party was reduced to 202 seats. Thesimultaneous House of Councillor elections also saw the party lose is majority in the upper house. However, Yoshida was able to form a minority government, and later in the year Hatoyama and 25 other Liberal Party–Hatoyama MPs rejoined the Liberal Party.^[4]

Another split occurred in November 1954 when 35 MPs left the Liberal Party to merge with theJapan Liberal Party and theKaishintō to form theJapan Democratic Party (JDP). A no-confidence motion was passed shortly afterwards, resulting in the resignation of Yoshida and Hatoyama, now a member of the JDP, becoming the new prime minister.

In theFebruary 1955 general elections, the party was reduced to 114 seats as it was defeated by the JDP. On 15 November that year the two parties merged to form theLiberal Democratic Party.

#	Name	Portrait	From	To
1	Shigeru Yoshida		1 March 1950	8 December 1954
2	Taketora Ogata		8 December 1954	15 November 1955

Election	Leader	Candidates	Seats	Change	Status
1952	Shigeru Yoshida	475	240 / 466		Government
1953		316	199 / 466	41	Government
1955	Taketora Ogata	248	112 / 467	87	Democratic-Liberal Party coalition

• Defunct political parties in Japan
• Political parties established in 1950
• Pro-Americanism
• 1950 establishments in Japan
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• 1955 disestablishments in Japan

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