Koizumi Children

Koizumi Children (小泉チルドレン, Koizumi Chirudoren) is a popular Japanese political term for the 83 LDP members of the House of Representatives first elected in the 2005 general election. The Koizumi Children are loosely organized into a political association called the 83 Group (83会, hachijūsan kai).

The term is a reference to then-prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, with whom the LDP success in the 2005 elections is closely associated. Some of the children were so-called 'assassins,' candidates hand-picked by Koizumi to defeat LDP party members who opposed his efforts at postal reform. As such, the children are popularly associated with Koizumi's reform-minded policies.^[1] Koichi Yamauchi, one of the children, has described the term as "essentially meaningless," arguing that differences among the group such as faction membership and personal background make any description of the children as a group problematic.^[2]

In the following 2009 general election, only 10 of the 83 Koizumi Children were re-elected. The 2009 election saw a massive defeat for the ruling LDP and brought the opposition DPJ to power for the first time. Ironically, most of these Koizumi Children were defeated in their districts by candidates who were "parachuted" in by the DPJ and others in a style much like the LDP once adopted.^[3][4] The election also saw a number of young DPJ politicians, all handpicked by DPJ election strategist Ichirō Ozawa, sent to "assassinate" vulnerable LDP seats and subsequently elected in the same manner as the Koizumi Children. As such, these DPJ Diet members were dubbed the "Ozawa Children".^[5]

Many of the Koizumi Children defeated in 2009 returned to the House of Representatives in the 2012 general election, and some were later elected to the House of Councillors.