Morihiro Hosokawa

Morihiro Hosokawa
細川 護熙
Official portrait, 1993
Prime Minister of Japan
In office
9 August 1993  28 April 1994
MonarchAkihito
Preceded byKiichi Miyazawa
Succeeded byTsutomu Hata
Leader of the New Party
In office
22 May 1992  9 December 1994
Preceded byParty Established
Succeeded byParty Abolished
Governor of Kumamoto Prefecture
In office
11 February 1983  10 February 1991
Preceded byIssei Sawada
Succeeded byJoji Fukushima
Member of the House of Representatives
for Kumamoto 1st district
In office
18 July 1993  7 May 1998
Preceded byShōichi Tanaka
Succeeded byEiichi Iwashita
Member of the House of Councillors
In office
26 July 1992  18 July 1993
ConstituencyNational PR
In office
10 July 1977  11 February 1983
Preceded byMoriyoshi Morinaka
Succeeded byMasaru Urata
ConstituencyKumamoto at-large
In office
4 July 1971  10 July 1977
ConstituencyNational district
Personal details
Born (1938-01-14) 14 January 1938
Tokyo, Empire of Japan
Political partyDPJ (1998–2016)
Other political
affiliations
LDP (until 1992)
JNP (1992–1994)
NFP (1994–1997)
From Five (1997–1998)
GGP (1998)
Spouse
Kayoko Ueda
(m. 1971)
Children3 (including Morimitsu)
RelativesTadateru Konoe (brother)
Alma materSophia University
Signature

Morihiro Hosokawa (細川 護煕, Hosokawa Morihiro, born 14 January 1938) is a Japanese politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1993 to 1994. He led an eight-party coalition government which was the first Japanese government not headed by a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) premier since 1955.

Born to a prominent family in Kumamoto Prefecture, Hosokawa is a grandson of Prince Fumimaro Konoe. He graduated from Sophia University before working at the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, and was elected to the National Diet in 1971 before leaving to serve as governor of his home prefecture from 1983 to 1991. In 1992, Hosokawa left the LDP to found the reformist Japan New Party, which won 35 seats in the 1993 general election. The LDP lost its governing majority, which was replaced by an eight-party coalition led by Hosokawa. He initiated electoral reforms before Tsutomu Hata's Japan Renewal Party took over leadership of the coalition in 1994. Hosokawa joined the New Frontier Party in 1996 and Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in 1998 before retiring from politics. He unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Tokyo in 2014. Since 2005, he has been the head of the Kumamoto-Hosokawa clan, one of Japan's former noble families.