Hosokawa, Morihiro, 1938-

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.