Abstract
The era of the independent voters in which we observed the spearheading “Aoshima and Nokku phenomenon” at 1995's local election is finally coming to an end. In the past twelve to thirteen years of the coalition government commencing with 1993's political shuffle, voters' value of the party identification has been changing in the side of the electorate. That is, the new type of party identification has come to the fore, as the conventional one becomes less influential. In other words, we are now beginning to see a new era of party identification where voters, without identifying themselves with any favorable political party, may favor and pick out a different party every time an election is held. We may say that there is a shift in party identification from the wonted attitude. Therefore, it no longer makes sense to distinguish between independent voters and party allegiants. The era when political parties were rejected, as symbolized in “the rebellion of independent voters, ” has come to an end and we now live in an era when each party's manifesto is compared closely with others at an equal level. Perhaps it is also time to cease using the term “independent voters”.
