Tomiichi Murayama

Murayama was born in Ōita Prefecture on 3 March 1924; his father was a fisherman.

He was the sixth son of eleven children.

His father passed away when he was fourteen, forcing him to deliver newspapers and work small jobs to help make a living.

After graduating from Oita Municipal High School in 1938, he moved to Tokyo, and began working at a printing factory during the day, and studied at the Tokyo Municipal School of Commerce at night.

He entered Meiji University in 1943 as a philosophy student, but was mobilised in 1944 and assigned to work in the Ishikawajima shipyards.

He graduated from Meiji University in 1946, and in 1948, he became the general secretary of the Oita Prefecture Fishing Village Youth League.

After the Fishing Village Youth Alliance was disbanded after achieving successes such as establishing a fisheries cooperative, he subsequently worked as the secretary of the Oita Prefectural Employees' Labor Union.

He is most remembered today for his speech "On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the War's end", in which he publicly apologised for Japan's past colonial rule and aggression.

In 1951, he ran for election as a member of the Oita City Council, but was defeated as runner-up.

In 1953, he married his wife, Yoshie Murayama.

In 1955, he ran for the Oita City Council again, and was elected as a member of the Japan Socialist Party, being elected twice after.

After serving for eight years, he ran for the Prefectural Assembly of Oita in 1963, and was elected, there serving for nine years.

Later that year, he was drafted into the Imperial Army and assigned to the 72nd Infantry of the 23rd Brigade of the 23rd Division as a private second class.

He was demobilised following Japan's surrender with the rank of officer candidate, and finished the war as a cadet with the rank of sergeant.

He then ran in the 1972 Japanese general election for the former Oita's 1st, being placed at the top of the list and winning.

He was then elected nine more times in the district.

In 1973, he joined the "New Flow Association" with Takahiro Yokomichi and Hideo Den.

When Makoto Tanabe replaced Takako Doi as Chairman of the JSP, Murayama became chairman of the National Diet Committee.

At the so called "Peacekeeping session" in 1992, where it was debated if the Japan Self-Defense Forces should participate in United Nations peacekeeping work, Murayama took the role of the primary opposition leader to the bill.

Nevertheless, it passed with the support of the LDP and other liberal parties.

As he was involved with other parties due to his role as Chair of Diet Affairs, he had connections with several other party higher ups, including Seiroku Kajiyama of the LDP and Takeho Kanzaki of Komeito.

In January 1993, Sadao Yamahana replaced Makoto Tanabe as chairman of the Socialist Party, but Murayama remained as chairman of the National Diet Committee.

In July, later that year, the 1993 election saw the LDP lose over 50 seats, and the JSP under Sadao Yamahana took a similar tumble, losing seats to new opposition parties such as the Japan Renewal Party or the Japan New Party, both under LDP defectors Tsutomu Hata and Morihiro Hosokawa respectively.

In August, the Hosokawa Cabinet - the first non-LDP cabinet since the party's formation - was established.

The JSP, despite being the biggest party, was not given the Prime Minister spot.

Instead, Sadao Yamahana was named Minister in Charge of Political Reform.

Yamahana resigned from JSP leadership to take responsibility for the poor showing in the 1993 election.

Murayama was elected as leader without much in the way of opposition, appointing Wataru Kubo as General-Secretary.

Tomiichi Murayama (村山 富市) is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1994 to 1996.

The Hosokawa cabinet survived for a year - it managed to pass the 1994 Japanese electoral reform, before Hosokawa resigned following revelations of a campaign finance scandal.

Following Hosokawa's resignation, bickering began over who would succeed him, with every party from the Hosokawa Cabinet eventually picking Tsutomu Hata.

The Hata Cabinet was soon after sworn in with a confidence vote; however, just a few days after, the combined forces of the Japan Renewal Party, Kōmeitō, Democratic Socialist Party, Liberal Reform Federation, Japan New Party would form a unified parliamentary group, the "Kaishin", with the goal of undercutting JSP influence in the Hata Cabinet.

The group would go on to form the New Frontier Party soon after.

Murayama felt betrayed by the announcement - he announced the JSP would withdrawal from the coalition, leaving it with minority status.

An internal battle waged in the JSP, with other leaders, such as Wataru Kubo, believing they should return to the Hata Cabinet.

He led the Japan Socialist Party, and was responsible for changing its name to the Social Democratic Party of Japan in 1996.

Upon becoming Prime Minister, he was Japan's first socialist leader in nearly fifty years.

Of the ten living former prime ministers of Japan, he is currently the oldest living prime minister, following the death of Yasuhiro Nakasone on 29 November 2019.

Murayama is also the only living former Japanese prime minister who was born in the Taishō era.

Following the death of Yasuhiro Nakasone in 2019 and of Giorgio Napolitano in 2023, Murayama is the only living former prime minister with military service connected to the war.