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The party's origins lie in the previous Democratic Party of Japan, which was founded in September 1996 by politicians of the centre-right and centre-left with roots in the Liberal Democratic Party and Japan Socialist Party. In April 1998 the previous DPJ merged with splinters of the New Frontier Party to create a new party which retained the DPJ name. In 2003 the party was joined by the Liberal Party of Ichirō Ozawa.