Confusion reigns | Japan Daily Briefing
With a date for a new Diet session settled, the LDP and opposition parties are stepping up their efforts to take the premiership
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Extraordinary session of the Diet nears
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) communicated to the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) on behalf of the Ishiba government that the government intends to convene an extraordinary session of the Diet on Tuesday, 21 October. The plan will then be for Prime Minister Ishiba and his cabinet to resign, triggering an election in the Diet to fill the premiership.
With the date for a new Diet session formally scheduled, the tempo of efforts to build support for rival bids by the LDP’s Takaichi Sanae and the Democratic Party for the People’s (DPFP) Tamaki Yūichirō to win the prime minister’s job will undoubtedly increase.
The race for the premiership intensifies
Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) Secretary-General Azumi Jun, Democratic Party for the People (DPFP) Secretary-General Shimba Kazuya, and Ishin no Kai Secretary-General Nakatsuka Hiroshi met on Tuesday, 14 October to lay the groundwork for a meeting of the three opposition party leaders on Wednesday, 15 October. Whether the three parties can pull together to elect the DPFP’s Tamaki Yūichirō faces major unresolved questions, including not only how to resolve policy differences on national security, nuclear energy, fiscal policy, and other areas but also how to manage the upper house, whether the three parties together hold fewer seats than the LDP alone, which would present a Tamaki government with a significant obstacle to governing. Meanwhile, bringing Ishin no Kai into a coalition poses its own challenges.
Despite these policy differences – and demands from the DPFP for the CDP to drop its opposition to building new nuclear reactors, the 2015 national security laws, and revising the constitution to include national emergency provisions – there is still space for agreement. To this end, the CDP leadership’s decision to entrust Noda Yoshihiko with negotiating on the party’s behalf may give the CDP, whose 148 seats would make it overwhelmingly the largest party in the coalition, more flexibility in negotiations (though even with the CDP delegating this authority to Noda presumably does not exclude the possibility that the party could vocally object later). The three parties have to grapple with the asymmetry between them – with the CDP being overwhelmingly larger than the other two – and Tamaki being the most popular choice to serve as prime minister.
