Photo/Illutration Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura speaks with reporters on April 10 after winning his second term the previous day. (Yuki Shibata)

Only the first half of the unified local elections is complete, and Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) is already declaring an overall victory and possibly reshaping the national political landscape.

The opposition party made inroads outside of its Kansai region base on April 9, winning a total of 69 seats in prefectural assembly elections, including those around the greater Tokyo metropolitan area.

The figure is more than a fourfold increase from four years ago.

And that does not include the 55 seats won by Osaka Ishin no Kai in the Osaka prefectural assembly election, a clear majority in that chamber.

Osaka Ishin no Kai also won 46 seats in the Osaka municipal assembly election, gaining a majority in that assembly for the first time.

“The results show that Nippon Ishin is gradually emerging as a national party rather than one based only in Osaka,” Hirofumi Yoshimura, a co-leader of Nippon Ishin who was re-elected as Osaka governor on April 9, said at an April 10 news conference.

The party gained strength in Kanagawa and Saitama prefectures, which sandwich Tokyo.

Nippon Ishin ran a total of 60 candidates in the Kanagawa prefectural assembly election as well as the municipal assembly elections in the Kanagawa cities of Yokohama, Kawasaki and Sagamihara.

Twenty-five of those candidates won a seat.

“I think we can say we made major gains,” said Ryuna Kanemura, a Nippon Ishin Lower House member who heads the prefectural branch of the party.

Noting that some of the party candidates defeated incumbents from the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Japanese Communist Party, Kanemura said, “We were chosen by unaffiliated voters who are fed up” with the confrontation among opposition parties.

Nippon Ishin won its first seat in the Saitama prefectural assembly as well as four in the Saitama municipal assembly.

Three Nippon Ishin candidates gained seats in the Fukuoka prefectural assembly on the main southern island of Kyushu. Seven party candidates won in the Fukuoka municipal assembly election.

Overall, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, won about the same number of seats in prefectural assembly elections in comparison to four years ago.

The CDP also increased its seats, while the JCP and the Democratic Party for the People saw their strength fall in prefectural assemblies.

(Shinya Takagi contributed to this article.)

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