A Political Scientist Boldly Proposes a "Shin Opposition Coalition" that Can Beat the LDP! What are the "Three Arrows" of Policy and the Unexpected Leader?

 
                                                Masato Kamikubo’s Critical Analytics No. 348
 
　
Abstract
The Liberal Democratic Party's support has declined significantly, but the opposition parties have not fared well either. Kenta Izumi, leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, has called on other opposition parties to fight together, but has been met with a negative attitude. In this article, therefore, we boldly propose the structure, policies and leaders of an 'opposition coalition' that has the potential to win a change of government, without regard to its feasibility.
 
LDP support is stagnant and so is the opposition.
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), reeling from the 'party ticket issue', continues to lose support. According to a poll conducted by Jiji Press in January this year, the LDP's support rate was only 14.6%. Excluding the period when the party was in opposition, this is the lowest figure since the survey began in 1960.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, at the regular party conference of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) held on 4 February, Kenta Izumi, the party leader, called for a change of government to be achieved without fail. He also expressed his intention to field more than 200 candidates in the lower house election, aiming for a single-party majority.　

At the party congress, Izumi also stated that even if the CDP does not achieve a single-party majority, he would aim for a 'mission-type cabinet' in which the CDP would focus on specific policies and join forces with other opposition parties.　

However, opposition parties such as the Nihon Ishi no Kai (Ishin), the National Democratic Party of Japan (NDP) and the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) have adopted a negative attitude towards Izumi's call. So far, no opposition parties have come together to take advantage of the LDP's difficulties.

Furthermore, according to a poll conducted by Jiji Press in February this year, support for the LDP has recovered slightly, while support for the opposition parties is all below 4 per cent. In fact, the opposition parties' approval ratings are also stagnating. This is probably due to the lack of novelty in the policies put forward by the opposition parties.　

This is because the LDP is an “Catch-all party” in terms of policy, capable of responding to a wide range of needs of the Japanese people. The LDP's traditional way of fighting is to "budget and implement policies similar to those of the opposition party and eliminate the opposition party's existence", rather than making clear differences with the opposition party.　

In the current Kishida cabinet, if the left-wing opposition party calls for 'relief for the weak', the LDP can also attach a budget and implement it without hesitation, saying that 'the opposition parties are also talking about it'. This would of course be an achievement for the LDP. The left-wing opposition parties have become de facto 'complementary forces to the LDP'.　

The LDP is already working on "supporting children and youth" and "free education", which the CDP appealed for at the party convention mentioned above, although there are differences in the details. Even if the opposition parties shout about the need for them, if they are realised, it will only be achievements of the LDP'.
 
Is the key to a change of government is winning the support of independents!?
Perhaps concerned about the current situation where neither the ruling nor opposition parties can be counted on, a January-February survey by Jiji Press showed that the number of independents who said they had no party support was well over 60%.

We have referred to these independents as the 'silent majority’. In addition to working-age, child-rearing and young people with middle-of-the-road views, this group also includes elderly retired salaried workers living in urban areas.
However, this does not mean that the silent majority does not vote at all, even if they are not strongly ideological and do not express their voice outwardly.

Although they do not regularly support any political party, they have cast their votes in response to current trends and political situations, and have had the power to effectively influence the outcome of elections.

For example, it was these people who once supported the change of government to the Democratic Party of Japan in 2009. In addition, the second Shinzo Abe government won the support of the silent majority with its economic policy "Abenomics" and social democratic policies to help the weak and vulnerable, and achieved the longest government in constitutional history. Today, however, the silent majority is not satisfied with the LDP, nor even with the CDP. In the author's view, their votes are flowing into Ishin, which advocates 'reform'.

Recall the local elections in April 2023. In this election, Ishin made great strides. It "completely conquered" the Osaka Governor, Mayor and Prefectural and Municipal Councils, bringing the total number of national leaders and local councillors belonging to Ishin to 774. Of these, 505 are in the Kinki region, and although the long-desired transformation into a national party is still some way off, it is clear that support for Ishin has gathered more support than ever before.　

The reason for this may be that the party's radical policies, which do not endorse 'bulk spending' and are oriented towards decentralisation, administrative reform and deregulation, have been well received. From this perspective, CDP leader Izumi's policy of aiming for a change of government by teaming up with opposition parties such as Ishin, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, is not a mistake.　However, in order to win the support of the silent majority, the key will not be to call on anyone and everyone to join the 'mission-type cabinet', but to 'narrow down' the list of parties to work with other than Ishin.

The discerning silent majority will not vote for a party with ambiguous guidelines that engages in 'all-round diplomacy'. This is why we have previously suggested in this series that CDP leader Izumi should "break away from the 'group seeking electoral cooperation with the JCP' that exists within the party and split the party".

In this article, I would like to stress again that if the CDP are serious about seeking a change of government, it would be more reasonable for them to work with a limited number of parties, such as Ishin, to call for reform.　
If a 'Shin opposition coalition (Opposition coalition resurgence)' centred on the CDP and Ishin is formed, what policies are needed to achieve a change of government? In this article, I would like to propose 'three arrows', disregarding their feasibility.
 
What are the 'three arrows' of policy that the 'Shin Opposition Coalition' should put forward?
We believe that the 'first arrow', which will be the flagship, is 'local sovereignty'. This is because it is a clear axis of opposition to the LDP's 'centralised power'.

The policy of 'local sovereignty' does not simply involve the transfer of authority from the state to the regions. In the future, a 'compact democracy' in which regions are directly linked to each other beyond national borders and build economic blocs will be formed. This movement will be accelerated.　
For example, special economic zones will be established in regional cities such as Kansai, Kyushu and Shikoku to attract foreign capital and boost profits. If Japanese cities are directly linked to fast-growing countries and regions such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, the pace of economic growth should accelerate.

It would be good to have a more extensive campaign to raise doubts about the 'economic system in which the central government binds the regions with regulations and everything is concentrated in the capital', which is the norm in Japan at present.

The "second arrow" is "political reform involving the regions." The 'politics and money' problem that has rocked the LDP is rooted in the high volume of activities by MPs in the regions. For some time, MPs have been trying to curry favour with various local supporters, including local support groups, local authorities and local assembly members, in order to gain votes in elections.　
To avoid such collusion, an 'electoral reform' was implemented some 30 years ago. However, even after the introduction of the 'parallel constituency proportional representation system', the activities of MPs did not change from a local focus to a parliamentary focus. On the contrary, relations between MPs and their local communities became closer. MPs struggled obtain political funding. They were forced to follow factional and local directives, find loopholes and receive slush funds.

Solving the problem of 'politics and money' will require a reduction in the 'local activities of MPs', which the political reforms of the 1990s left undone. Otherwise, the situation will remain the same, where money is spent on local responses. MPs will be desperate to come up with new alchemy.　

From this perspective, a bold carve-out involving the regions is necessary, whereby 'local affairs are taken care of by chiefs and local lawmakers' and 'MPs are detached from the regions and concentrate on policy-making in the Diet'.
 
The centralized system for 'childcare and education support' has reached its limits.
The 'third arrow' is 'childcare and education support tailored to each region. Osaka Governor and co-chair of Ishin, Hirofumi Yoshimura, succeeded in reducing the number of children on waiting lists of nursery schools in Osaka City from 325 to 37 in 2018, when he was mayor of Osaka (full text of Osaka Mayor's press conference, 10 May 2018). On the other hand, the LDP at the time was oriented towards "free education rather than measures for children on waiting lists", and was heavily criticised for having its priorities reversed.　
The number of children on waiting lists at the time was concentrated in urban areas. In many rural areas, which the LDP regarded as its 'vote-collecting base', there were vacancies at nursery schools, and the number of children on waiting lists was lower than in urban areas. Hence, it is thought that the LDP prioritised 'free childcare'. As a result, the situation in rural areas was taken into account in a centrally-controlled state, and there was no improvement in the problem of children waiting for places in the metropolitan area and major cities.　

This is the limitation of the LDP politics of 'nationwide uniformity'. In order to improve this situation, education-related measures should also be promoted by each region according to its own issues under 'local sovereignty'.　
In addition, Ishin has decided to make tuition fees completely free of charge for high schools in Osaka Prefecture from 2024. Although this measure was criticised last year when it was decided, as being 'poorly implemented', it is noteworthy that the regional government have secured their own financial resources and are taking the lead over the national government in supporting education.

If the funding for the policy can be transferred from the centre to the regions, and if the regions can increase their own independent financial resources, it will serve as a countermeasure to the growing 'Ministry of Finance domination' under the Kishida administration and to the uncertainty of future 'tax hikes'.　In this way, the author believes that if a different 'national image' from that of the LDP is proposed, based on local sovereignty, expectations for a change of government will increase.
 
Who is the unexpected leader of the 'Shin Opposition Coalition'?
If a new opposition force with a vision of 'local so vereignty' is to be formed, it will need a new leader to be the centrepiece of that new opposition force.The best person for the job would not be Izumi of the CDP, or Baba Nobuyuki and Yoshimura, co-chairmen of the Ishin, but Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. It is rumoured that Koike will soon make a final attempt to become Japan's first female prime minister, a long-cherished ambition. She is being talked about resigning as Governor of Tokyo and running for the Tokyo 15 by-election in April.

The LDP also needs "Japan's first female prime minister" to regain popularity, but there are other candidates within the party, including Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Minister of State for Economic and Security Affairs Sanae Takaichi. It is not necessarily seeking Governor Koike's help.

Rather, Koike would have a better chance of achieving her long-held goal of leading a new opposition party that upholds 'regional sovereignty', seeking revenge for her defeat in the November 2017 general election when she led the Party of Hope, which upheld regional sovereignty.

A key player in achieving this is Seiji Maehara, who has left the Democratic Party for the People to form the Party for Free Education and is attempting to link up with Ishin. Maehara appears to have the conviction that the opposition to the LDP is not simply an 'opposition coalition' but a party that promotes 'regional sovereignty reform'.

During the second Abe administration that most raised expectations of a change of government was when Maehara, then head of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), decided to join the Party of Hope which was led by Koike.

Maehara's current move is a bit similar to his departure from the DPP in 2017. Now is an opportunity for Maehara to take revenge. It may be Maehara's role, unsurprisingly, to join the Shin Opposition coalition and persuade Koike to lead the party.　

Koike has survived a number of political battle. At a time when distrust in politics is at its peak, it would be interesting to see Koike lead her colleagues in the last great battle of her life as the trump card to break through it.