Photo/Illutration Nippon Ishin President Nobuyuki Baba addresses the party executive board on Oct. 31 in Osaka. (Kei Kobayashi)

Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) is expected to hold a presidential election amid growing criticism of its current leader, Nobuyuki Baba, over the opposition party’s losses in the Lower House election.

The party’s executive board met in Osaka on Oct. 31 and decided to conduct an online vote among Nippon Ishin lawmakers and local politicians on whether a party election is needed.

Results of the ballot are expected as early as Nov. 6.

A significant number of politicians from Osaka Prefecture, the party’s home base, are favor of a leadership election.

“If you ask whether we won or lost, I would say we lost,” Baba said at the board meeting, referring to the Oct. 27 Lower House election. “This is entirely my responsibility.”

While most opposition parties gained seats at the expense of the ruling coalition, Ishin lost six of the 44 seats it held before the election.

Although Nippon Ishin remains the second-largest opposition party, the Democratic Party for the People, the third largest, made significant gains in the election and apparently appealed to Ishin’s voter base.

Baba said he was open to holding a presidential election, but he previously suggested that he might not enter the race.

“To hold a presidential election effectively means a vote of no confidence in the leader,” Baba said on Oct. 29. “If it overwhelmingly turns out that we should proceed with the election, I may have to consider (not running).”

Some Ishin lawmakers are openly demanding the ousting of the current party leadership. This includes Hitoshi Asada, the party’s Upper House chairperson, who called the Lower House election results a “disaster.”

(This article was written by Kei Kobayashi and Yuichi Nobira.)