Japan opposition forms alliance to challenge PM Takaichi

TOKYO — Two Japanese opposition parties agreed on Thursday to join forces to fight Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s ruling coalition, forming an alliance seeking to draw swing voters in anticipated snap elections. Takaichi became Japan’s first woman prime minister in October and is riding high in opinion polls, offering a possible window for her ruling bloc to boost its slim majority in the powerful lower house of parliament. But the leader of the largest opposition outfit, Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), indicated the alliance would not make it easy for her. “We have agreed to form a new party to jointly fight,” said CDP chief Yoshihiko Noda. Noda told reporters that in the elections, which media reports say may be held next month, CDP would run with Komeito — the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s former coalition partner. The opposition parties have agreed to form a “centrist” counterforce to Takaichi’s right-leaning coalition, he said. On Wednesday, officials from Takaichi’s party and its junior partner, Japan Innovation Party, told reporters that they had been notified of the premier’s decision to call a vote soon after a parliamentary session begins next week. Mikitaka Masuyama, dean of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, told AFP that “if swing voters are convinced that the Komeito-CDP bloc can be trustworthy and vote for them, the general election could be a close battle”. But, he added, “This is a scenario of low possibility.” Sadafumi Kawato, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, said that “at best, Komeito will keep its seats while the CDP will increase their seats... but not enough to overwhelm the ruling bloc”. CDP’s Noda said he wants to approach parties beyond Komeito to seek further support for their envisaged party. Last year, Komeito abruptly ended its 26-year relationships with the LDP, in part because it was unnerved by Takaichi’s past harsh stance on China and her regular visits to a Tokyo shrine that honours Japan’s war dead, including war criminals. Komeito chief Tetsuo Saito on Thursday expressed discomfort with what he called the “right-leaning” shift represented by the current LDP-JIP leadership. In particular, he cited the pair’s eagerness to amend Japan’s post-war constitution in a way that would “negate the path we have followed as a pacifist country”. “We find these policies unacceptable,” Saito said, also voicing displeasure with recent reports that a senior Japanese official close to Takaichi privately told local reporters that the nation should possess nuclear weapons.