Komeito Chief Positive on Integration into Centrist Party

Tokyo, March 15 (Jiji Press)–Komeito leader Toshiko Takeya has sounded positive on the party’s integration into the Centrist Reform Alliance, a peer in the Japanese opposition camp, in the future. “We are holding careful talks with the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan on the premise that Komeito will integrate itself into the Centrist Reform Alliance,” she said at an extraordinary convention of Komeito held in Tokyo on Saturday. The Centrist Reform Alliance currently comprises only lawmakers of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament. The party was launched in January by then Lower House members of the CDP and Komeito, ahead of the Feb. 8 general election for the all-important Lower House. Komeito is now on the opposition side after scrapping its coalition with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party last October. All of the lawmakers at the CDP and Komeito are members of the House of Councillors, the upper Diet chamber. At the Komeito convention, Takeya said the Centrist Reform Alliance gained more than 10 million votes under the proportional representation system in the general election, stressing that this represents people’s “great expectations” for the party. Takeya criticized the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its current coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, for pushing the government’s draft fiscal 2026 budget through the Lower House on Friday although the amount of time spent on deliberations at the chamber was far shorter than usual due to the Lower House dissolution in January and the subsequent Feb. 8 election. “It is important to create and nurture a large centrist force at the center of Japan’s politics in order to monitor the high-handed government management by the huge ruling coalition,” she said. The LDP-JIP coalition won three-fourths of the 465 Lower House seats in the general election. In contrast, the Centrist Reform Alliance significantly reduced its presence in the poll. On a series of local elections scheduled for spring 2027, Takeya said that Komeito and the CDP will field their own candidates, due to factors such as time constraint and the status of relations with local government heads. The Komeito convention was also attended by Centrist Reform Alliance leader Junya Ogawa and CDP chief Shunichi Mizuoka. “The bonds of the three parties’ trust are national infrastructure of Japanese politics,” Ogawa said in an address at the convention, underlining the importance of cooperation among the Centrist Reform Alliance, the CDP and Komeito. The Upper House members and local assembly members of the CDP and Komeito initially planned to join the Centrist Reform Alliance after the Feb. 8 Lower House election. The momentum for early integration diminished, however, in the wake of the centrist party’s crushing defeat in the general election. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]