Team Mirai Faces Challenge of How to Confront Takaichi Govt

Tokyo, July 20 (Jiji Press)–A challenge for Team Mirai is how the fledgling Japanese opposition party should confront the administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, also head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. There is a view that the LDP and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, are taking advantage of Team Mirai to secure a majority vote in the House of Councillors, political watchers said. The ruling bloc lacks a majority in the upper chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament. At its first party convention since its establishment, held in Tokyo on Saturday, Team Mirai reaffirmed its stance of cooperating with both the ruling side and other opposition parties on a case-by-case basis to realize its policy pledges, with an aim to “update” the country’s democracy utilizing digital technology. In its policy platform adopted at the convention, the party showed its plan to limit the number of candidates in next spring’s unified local elections, saying that it will not aim to rapidly increase its presence. Instead, the party set a goal of building a track record of advancing policies partly through joint submissions of bills with other parties. This does not mean that “we will only work with either” the ruling or opposition camp, Team Mirai leader Takahiro Anno said at a press conference after the party convention. Team Mirai was launched by Anno, an artificial intelligence engineer, in May last year. He won an Upper House seat in the July 2025 election for the chamber. The party secured 11 seats in the House of Representatives, the all-important lower chamber of the Diet, in this February’s general election. While most of its lawmakers are rookies, Team Mirai is drawing attention in the Nagatacho political district in Tokyo by setting up an intraparty “engineer team,” which develops computer systems and technology tools, and holding study meetings on AI for lawmakers from other parties. During the current Diet session, Team Mirai teamed up with the major opposition Centrist Reform Alliance and the Japanese Communist Party, another opposition party, in submitting a bill calling for a fact-finding survey in relation to a planned hike in patients’ out-of-pocket expenses for high-cost medical treatment. Team Mirai submitted a bill to ban political donations from companies and other organizations jointly with opposition Sanseito while boycotting Diet proceedings with opposition parties including the CRA and the Democratic Party for the People in protest against the Takaichi administration’s heavy-handed parliamentary management in the late stage of the Diet session. Meanwhile, Team Mirai agreed with the ruling coalition to include a provision related to the use of information and communication technology in a bill to establish a secondary capital of the nation, a signature policy of the JIP, and decided to vote for the bill although opposition parties are against the legislation. The LDP and the JIP have expected Team Mirai to play a supplementary role for them in the Upper House. “Team Mirai has little political experience, so it is only playing in the hands of the ruling coalition,” a DPFP lawmaker said. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]