Murayama Tomiichi

Murayama Tomiichi (born March 23, 1924, Ōita, Japan—died October 17, 2025, Ōita, Japan) was a politician who in 1994–96 was the first Socialist prime minister of Japan since 1948.

One of 11 children born to a fisherman, Murayama graduated from Meiji University in Tokyo in 1946 and then returned to Ōita, where he became an activist in the local fishermen’s union. Most of his subsequent political career was spent in relative obscurity. He won election to the Ōita city assembly in 1955 and moved up to a seat in the Ōita prefectural assembly in 1963. He was elected to the lower house of the Diet (parliament) in 1972 as a member of the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) and was successively reelected thereafter. Murayama first gained national recognition when, as a compromise candidate, he became the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDJP; the party’s new official name in English from 1991) in 1993.

The SDJP was a member of a seven-party coalition that came to power in 1993 and ended almost three decades of uninterrupted rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). In April 1994, however, Murayama abruptly withdrew his party’s support from Hata Tsutomu, the second prime minister elected by the coalition. When Hata resigned two months later, Murayama succeeded him as prime minister on June 29 on the strength of an unprecedented alliance between the SDJP and the LDP. Murayama helped hold the fragile new coalition together, but he never had a firm grasp on power. On January 5, 1996, he resigned and was succeeded six days later by Hashimoto Ryūtarō of the LDP.

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One of Murayama’s most notable acts as prime minister was issuing an apology regarding his country’s aggression during World War II. On August 15, 1995, the 50th anniversary of Japan announcing its surrender, he stated:

During a certain period in the not too distant past, Japan, following a mistaken national policy, advanced along the road to war, only to ensnare the Japanese people in a fateful crisis, and, through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations. In the hope that no such mistake be made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology. Allow me also to express my feelings of profound mourning for all victims, both at home and abroad, of that history.