Centrist Party to Pick New Chief Fri. after Election Blunder

Tokyo, Feb. 9 (Jiji Press)–The Japanese opposition Centrist Reform Alliance is expected to elect its new leader Friday, following its crushing defeat in Sunday’s House of Representatives election. Yoshihiko Noda and Tetsuo Saito, the co-leaders of the party, formed by the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Komeito prior to the election, announced at a meeting of party executives Monday their decisions to resign from the posts. Member lawmakers will hold a general meeting Wednesday to discuss details of the election to pick the party’s new leader. The Centrist Reform Alliance is at a crossroads over whether it can regain its initial momentum after the party saw its seats decrease some 70 pct to only 49 through the latest election for the 465-seat powerful lower chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament. At a joint press conference with Saito held after Monday’s executive meeting, Noda expressed eagerness to launch a new leadership team before the start of a special Diet session, seen to be convened Feb. 18. Many party veterans, including Ichiro Ozawa, Katsuya Okada, Yukio Edano, and Jun Azumi, who all played central roles in the administration led by the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan more than a decade ago, lost their seats in the Lower House election. While members from the CDP and Komeito jointly hold key posts in the Centrist Reform Alliance at present, the new leadership team is unlikely to adopt this system. “I’m determined to be the leader of discussions,” former CDP leader Kenta Izumi, who won a single-seat constituency seat in the general election, told reporters in the western Japan city of Kyoto on Monday, indicating his eagerness to run in the party leadership poll. Some hope Junya Ogawa, who served as CDP secretary-general and also clinched a constituency seat, will become the centrist party’s new leader. Under its basic policies, the Centrist Reform Alliance tolerates national security legislation and the restart of suspended nuclear reactors, in a shift from the policies of the CDP. The CDP opted for the policy change to speed up the launch of the new party, giving consideration to the policies of Komeito. In addition, Komeito candidates were treated preferentially, being placed high on the new party’s proportional representation list for the general election. As a result, 28 of the 49 Centrist Reform Alliance members who won seats in the election are from Komeito, and the Komeito side therefore is likely to have a greater say in running the new party. Noda was prime minister at the time of the 2012 Lower House election, in which the former DPJ suffered a defeat and lost power. Noda “crushed our party again,” a member from the CDP said. “We will firmly follow the core policy of centrist reform,” Saito said at the joint press conference, stressing that the Centrist Reform Alliance will not split up. Still, skepticism is emerging among CDP and Komeito lawmakers in the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, who did not join the Centrist Reform Alliance when the new party was established, as well as among local assembly members of the two parties. “We need to move ahead carefully going forward,” CDP Secretary-General Masayo Tanabu, an Upper House member, told the press Monday. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]