Tokyo governor launches new party for conservative reform
TOKYO: Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike yesterday launched a new party promising conservative reform, stepping up her challenge to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and adding to uncertainty about the outlook for a general election widely expected next month.
But the popular former ruling party lawmaker, who is already upstaging Abe in the media and complicating forecasts, said she would not seek a seat in Parliament’s lower house now.
On Monday, Abe said he would call the snap election to reset his mandate, betting that his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and junior coalition party could keep their majority in Parliament’s lower house, where they hold a two-thirds “super majority”.
Abe will dissolve the lower house today for a vote expected on Oct 22.
At a news conference launching her “Party of Hope”, Koike repeated promises to form a party without ties to vested interests in order to “reset Japan”.
“If at this time we don’t reset Japan, we won’t be able to sufficiently protect our international competitiveness and national security,” said Koike, who quit LDP earlier this year.
There was speculation that Koike would run in the election, but she said she would remain in her position as governor.
Koike’s new party is staking out a policy space similar to that of the conservative LDP and the right-wing of the main opposition Democratic Party, a mixture of conservatives and liberals.
But her calls for open government, a freeze on a planned sales tax hike from 2019, an end to nuclear power and a promise to promote diversity give it a more populist tinge.
The Nikkei business daily reported yesterday that Koike’s party was in merger talks with the Democrats, and she had met Democratic Party leader Seiji Maehara on Tuesday for discussions, but Koike made no reference to the issue.
Nikkei said prospects for a merger were uncertain, since Koike had suggested she was not keen, and the move could trigger a split in the Democratic Party.
The party has been struggling with single-digit support rates and several members have defected to run for Koike’s new party.
Koike, 65, defied LDP to run successfully for the Tokyo governorship a year ago, and fielded candidates who routed LDP in an election for the metropolitan assembly in July.
Koike had said she aimed to push reformist policies, open government and an end to reliance on nuclear power. Reuters