Sensing blood in the water amid a political funding scandal, the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan is calling for a change in government in the next Lower House election. 

“Let’s remove the ruling Liberal Democratic Party from power and form a new government to realize political reforms, support for children and youth and free education,” CDP leader Kenta Izumi told his party’s convention in Tokyo on Feb. 4.

The CDP’s action plan for fiscal 2024 adopted at the convention calls on the party to surpass the LDP and become the top party in the next Lower House poll.

Izumi said even if the CDP cannot win a single-party majority, it can still form a “mission-oriented Cabinet” focused on policies on which it can agree with other parties.

He said he had instructed senior party officials to discuss the possibility with other opposition parties.

The CDP has not mentioned a “change in government” since it lost seats in the 2021 Lower House election.

The wording was not in an initial draft for the fiscal 2024 action plan but was hastily included before the party convention after the political fund scandal rocked the LDP, according to CDP sources.

“A blunder by our opponents has brought a windfall,” a senior CDP official said.

Izumi first advocated a mission-oriented Cabinet in late December when the LDP was facing a headwind over the scandal in which hundreds of millions of yen in revenues from fund-raising parties went unreported within the ruling party.

During a Lower House session on Jan. 31, he said the CDP initially aimed to form a “national salvation Cabinet” to eliminate off-the-book political funds and carry out political reforms.

He even called on members of Komeito, a junior coalition partner, and the LDP to join the envisaged Cabinet.

But Izumi has struggled to unite opposition parties, such as in unifying candidates in the next Lower House election.

Two opposition parties, Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) and the Democratic Party for the People, remain skeptical of Izumi’s overture.

“If you ask whether we can steer the country along with the CDP, we can never do it,” Nobuyuki Baba, leader of Nippon Ishin, has said.

Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of the DPP, has said, “Even if an administration were formed, it would quickly collapse.”

The two parties said agreement on key policy issues, such as the Constitution and national security, is a precondition for considering a coalition government.

It is a tall order for the CDP, which includes liberal members among its ranks and also plans to work with the Japanese Communist Party, because Nippon Ishin and the DPP generally take more conservative stances on these issues.

The CDP, Nippon Ishin, the DPP and the JCP agreed to work to get to the bottom of the political fund scandal and succeeded in forcing the LDP to submit a list of lawmakers who failed to report revenues from fund-raising parties.

However, discords remain over specific political reform measures.

While the CDP has called for an outright ban on fund-raising parties, Nippon Ishin has made a more moderate proposal for prohibiting purchases of party tickets by companies and organizations.

Nippon Ishin, which has vowed to become the largest opposition party, has tried to keep the CDP from taking the initiative in discussions on political reforms, challenging the CDP to first prohibit fund-raising parties unilaterally in accordance with its own proposal.

While the approval rating for the Kishida Cabinet has fallen to record-low levels, the CDP received support from only 4 percent of respondents to an Asahi Shimbun poll conducted in January, even lower than Nippon Ishin’s 6 percent.

Amid speculation that the Lower House may be dissolved for a snap election at the end of the current ordinary session in June, three Lower House by-elections scheduled in April are expected to provide a key litmus test for Izumi’s strategy of rallying opposition parties.

In a Lower House by-election for the Chiba No. 5 district in April last year, an LDP candidate won after opposition parties failed to unify their candidates.

Voters critical of the government were split among other candidates including the four each fielded by the CDP, Nippon Ishin, the DPP and the JCP.

A mid-ranking CDP member is wary of moves of other opposition parties.

“With political distrust growing over the unreported fund scandal, the seriousness of opposition parties is being put to the test,” the source said. “A change in government will again be shelved for an extended period if we fail to come together and miss such a window of opportunity.”

(This article was written by Kenji Izawa, Kei Kobayashi and Nozomi Matsui.)