By Takayuki Tanaka

8:00 JST, November 1, 2025

One of the world’s most successful examples of coalition politics since World War II may be the 1982-98 administration of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Kohl’s government was mainly composed of his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and a junior partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP). During the 16 years that Kohl was chancellor, West Germany and East Germany were reunited in 1990, the EU officially came into being via the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, and Germany committed to being in the first group of countries to adopt the euro currency that was introduced in 1999. The Kohl administration was a driving force in the achievement of European unity.

During this time, the FDP’s leading member, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, served as foreign minister and played a significant role in European diplomacy. When Genscher died in 2016 and Kohl passed away a year later, newspapers around the world paid tribute to each of them as architects of German reunification and European unity. This case showed that a coalition could achieve political stability together with coherent and visionary policies.

In Japan, too, there have been good examples of coalitions. The Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito took back power from the Democratic Party of Japan in 2012 and continued their coalition under four prime ministers over 13 years until the partnership was dissolved in October. In that coalition’s heyday, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of the LDP boasted of the enhancement of national security and economic revitalization as his administration’s legacies. While Abe was in office, the coalition had a majority of seats in both houses of the Diet, thanks to........

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