CRA Does Not Extend Its Wing

Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA) is in trouble in its effort to extend its wing from the Lower House to the Upper House in the Diet. While CRA members in the Lower House are working together in this young party, the members of Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) and Komeito are still separated in the Upper House, hesitating to join the CRA. Having been fragmented into three parties, they cannot exercise their power against the leading parties led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. 

Countering Takaichi’s abrupt decision for a snap election of the Lower House, the CRA was established by Lower House members of the CDPJ and Komeito which had cancelled 26-year-old coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) last fall. Although the CRA was expected to integrate supporters of the CDPJ and Komeito, the result was a serious defeat for the new party. Supporters of the CDPJ and Komeito had been political enemy each other for decades and could not work together in local level.

 

While the members of CDPJ and Komeito in the Upper House were supposed to join the CRA after the Lower House election in February, they remained as each single party in this session of the Diet, hoping to join the CRA in the future. So, three parties, sharing mostly the same policies, have respectively been asking questions to Takaichi and working for procedure of bills in the Diet session as different parties.

 

In its national convention on March 15, Komeito decided not to join the CRA by the quadrennial unified local elections scheduled in April 2027. There are many local assembly members of Komeito, who are forming a group with the LDP. It is hard for those members to leave the group and build up a new group with the CDPJ. The partner of Komeito is different between in the Lower House of Diet and in local assemblies across Japan.

 

The CDPJ also turned down its idea of early integration into the CRA. The CDPJ once made a draft of annual schedule with a target to join the CRA by June 2027, it was dismissed in its national convention held on March 29. Shocked by the result of Lower House election, the CDPJ local members are hesitant to have a joint election campaign with Komeito in the unified local elections next spring.

 

In the February Lower House election, a certain share of traditional supporters for CDPJ rejected to vote for the CRA, while those for Komeito earnestly voted for it. Mutual distrust still remains in both parties. As the CDPJ has 1,200 of local assembly members around Japan, Komeito does 2,800 members, twice larger than the CDPJ. The local elections will have a crucial meaning for Komeito to survive.

 

Both the CDPJ and Komeito hopes to join the CRA as soon as possible. They are going to discuss their cooperation in next Upper House election expected to be held in 2028. However, the real engine of each election campaign for every Diet member is local politicians and their supporters. Longtime rivalry between the CDPJ and Komeito makes their cooperation difficult, even after integration of both parties.

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