Japan’s New Centrist Party to Be Launched with Over 160 Lawmakers

Tokyo, Jan. 20 (Jiji Press)–The Centrist Reform Alliance, a new political party of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Komeito, a former ruling coalition member, will be launched with over 160 House of Representatives lawmakers. The CDP said Tuesday that 144 of its 148 lawmakers in the all-important lower chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, will join the Centrist Reform Alliance ahead of the Feb. 8 Lower House general election. Of the remaining four, two will retire and the other two, including former internal affairs minister Kazuhiro Haraguchi, have decided not to take part in the new party. “We will do our best to be recognized as a force capable of competing against the (ruling) Liberal Democratic Party,” CDP Secretary-General Jun Azumi told reporters. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said at a meeting of LDP executives the same day that her party is determined to “fight as one and win” the closely watched election. She is set to dissolve the Lower House on Friday, at the beginning of this year’s ordinary Diet session. “I’ll make full effort to win voter confidence,” Takaichi, also LDP president, said, citing the party’s new coalition with the Japan Innovation Party and her government’s shift toward a “responsible and proactive” fiscal policy. LDP election strategy chief Keiji Furuya said that the party will decide on Wednesday its first batch of official candidates in the Lower House race. In principle, the party is expected to give official endorsement to members who were embroiled in its high-profile “slush fund” scandal and allow them to stand for both constituency and proportional representation seats. JIP chief Hirofumi Yoshimura, also governor of Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, told reporters at the prefectural government office that he thinks Takaichi will step down as the country’s leader if her goal for the ruling bloc to win a Lower House majority, or at least 233 of the 465 seats in the chamber, in the upcoming election is not met. “The (Lower House) dissolution is meant to let voters say yes or no to the administration,” Yoshimura said, expressing his wish to increase JIP-held seats. The ruling bloc’s election platform is expected to include a pledge to reduce the consumption tax rate for food items to zero for two years. Meanwhile, the Centrist Reform Alliance is calling for making the consumption tax elimination for food a permanent measure. Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of the Democratic Party for the People, another opposition party, said in a street speech in Tokyo on Tuesday that consumption tax removal for food will take time. “DPFP policies can help increase take-home pay immediately,” Tamaki told a press conference. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]