Photo/Illutration Seiji Maehara, center, with other newly appointed executives of Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) in the Diet on Dec. 2 (Kei Kobayashi)

Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) appointed party-hopping lawmaker Seiji Maehara to a key post, raising alarms both within and outside the second-largest opposition party.

Maehara was named party co-representative at a meeting of party lawmakers on Dec. 2, a day after Nippon Ishin elected Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura as leader.

A Lower House member in his 11th term, Maehara, 62, served as leader of the Democratic Party of Japan and the Democratic Party, another now-defunct opposition party.

Yoshimura, 49, has said he intends to count on Maehara’s “experience and achievements” as he is forced to juggle the two roles as governor and party leader.

“I want to fulfill our party’s vision by communicating its policies to both the ruling and opposition parties,” Maehara, a former foreign minister, said Dec. 2.

A young Nippon Ishin member said Maehara’s appointment poses a “risk,” however.

Maehara, who joined the party immediately before the Oct. 27 Lower House election, has built his career moving from one party to another.

In 2005, Maehara was elected DPJ leader at the age of 43, only to resign in less than a year after a party lawmaker criticized the government based on a fake email.

In 2017, he became leader of the Democratic Party, which was also the main opposition party at the time.

But he soon proposed a merger with Kibo no To (Party of Hope), which was newly founded by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced he would dissolve the Lower House for a snap election.

The merger plan prompted former DPJ lawmakers to split into the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Democratic Party for the People.

Last year, Maehara lost in the DPP’s leadership contest and formed a new party, Free Education for All, with four other lawmakers.

A Nippon Ishin member said Yoshimura may become unable to keep Maehara under control.

Another expressed concerns about potential clashes of opinion between the two politicians.

Speaking on a TV program on Dec. 2, Yoshimura said he has heard pros and cons of appointing Maehara as co-representative and is aware that some call him a “destroyer.”

“I want to establish the party leadership that will be supported by Maehara serving as a ‘big brother,’” he said.

Yoshimura has emphasized that Nippon Ishin will confront the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito.

But it remains to be seen whether Maehara can serve as a catalyst to promote closer collaboration with other opposition parties.

“Maehara is completely unpredictable,” a senior CDP official said.

The DPJ expelled Maehara after he created Free Education for All without accepting the letter of resignation he had submitted.

“Doesn’t Nippon Ishin have any other politician qualified for the job?” a senior DPP official said.

At the Dec. 2 meeting, Nippon Ishin appointed Lower House members in their 40s, all in their second term, to its three executive posts.

The three are Secretary-General Ryohei Iwatani, 44; policy affairs chief Hitoshi Aoyagi, 46; and Tsukasa Abe, chair of the general council, 42.

Joji Uruma, a 50-year-old Lower House member in his second term, was appointed Diet affairs chief.

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

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