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Japan’s main opposition party will disband after just eight months, deepening divisions within the country’s opposition as it struggles to challenge the popular administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
The Centrist Reform Alliance will end its activities after failing to establish itself as an effective political alternative to Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), its leader Junya Ogawa said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Ogawa said the party would settle its outstanding payments before formally dissolving.
“Once we settle outstanding payments, we will dissolve the party,” he said.
The Centrist Reform Alliance was formed in January through an attempted merger of two major opposition groups, Komeito and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, with the aim of creating a stronger challenge to the LDP.
However, the new party suffered a heavy defeat in February’s general election, winning just 49 of the 465 seats in the lower house. More than 100 of its incumbent lawmakers seeking re-election also lost their seats.
The LDP, meanwhile, gained more than 100 seats to secure 316 in total.
Some members of the Centrist Reform Alliance are expected to return to their former parties, while others may establish new political groups.
Ogawa said the party’s lawmakers would nevertheless form a lower-house caucus to continue working towards a viable alternative to the LDP.
Komeito, which is backed by a lay Buddhist organisation, ended its 26-year coalition with the LDP in October last year. The party said at the time that the LDP had refused to strengthen regulations governing political donations following a fundraising scandal.
