WI Japan had a multi-party system?

Apologies if a discussion like this has been done before, but how could Japan have developed a solid two-party or multi-party system where either the LDP doesn't assert the dominant position it has in OTL or doesn't ever get formed? And what significant impact would this have on the country going forward?

(If there has been an in-depth discussion of this kind feel free to point me in its direction btw.)
 
Apologies if a discussion like this has been done before, but how could Japan have developed a solid two-party or multi-party system where either the LDP doesn't assert the dominant position it has in OTL or doesn't ever get formed? And what significant impact would this have on the country going forward?

(If there has been an in-depth discussion of this kind feel free to point me in its direction btw.)
Prevent the 1955 merger of the Japan Democratic Party and the Japan Liberal Party. Maybe one of the people pushing for the merger falls down a flight of stairs, and they never actually merge.

Not sure that would actually help much, though, as they could probably just become a single party in all but name under a coalition like the Liberals and Nationals in Australia.

The big thing, though, is adopting a different voting system. Ever since the JSP Government changed it from the 1955 system in the '90s, the Opposition in Japan has been able to get higher seat totals fairly consistently.
 
The alternative is a centirst coaliton of a moderate-led Socialist Party with the Democratic Party (the less right-wing of the two "bourgeois" parties that merged to form the LDP in 1955) and some minor parties. In fact, this actually happened under the Katayama and Ashida cabinets of 1947-8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katayama_Cabinet A corruption scandal under Ashida and the split of the Socialists into left and right wings put an end to that possibility.
 
Prevent the 1955 merger of the Japan Democratic Party and the Japan Liberal Party. Maybe one of the people pushing for the merger falls down a flight of stairs, and they never actually merge.

The creation of LDP was a direct result of the merger of right-wing and left-wing socialists into one unified Socialist Party in 1955. The unification didn't really solve underlining issues opposite wings of the party had as was seen when the Democratic Socialists splintered from Socialists in 1960 and those same contradictions could have prevented the merger. If you prevent that, parties on the right won't probably unify either, or at least it doesn't happen like it did IOTL.
 
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