OGAWA CHOSEN AS JAPAN’S MAIN OPPOSITION LEADER AFTER ELECTION DEFEAT

TOKYO, Feb 13 (Bernama-Kyodo) -- Japan's main opposition force, the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA), elected 54-year-old Junya Ogawa as its new head on Friday, as the newly formed party embarks on a revamp following a heavy loss in the recent general election, Kyodo News reported.

Ogawa, former secretary-general of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), defeated Takeshi Shina, 59, former acting chief policymaker of the CDPJ, in a two-horse race, winning the support of 27 of the CRA’s 49 lawmakers.

The brief two-day contest came ahead of a special parliamentary session next week, at which Sanae Takaichi is expected to be re-elected prime minister following her ruling coalition’s landslide victory in Sunday’s House of Representatives election.

The CRA was formed in January by lower-house members from the CDPJ and the Komeito party, just weeks ahead of the snap election, in which Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) secured an over two-thirds majority in the powerful 465-member chamber.

However, the CRA lost more than half of its 167 seats, prompting its co-leaders, Yoshihiko Noda, 68, and Tetsuo Saito, 74, the former heads of the CDPJ and Komeito, respectively, to resign to take responsibility.

Ogawa’s term as leader will run until the end of March next year.

While 28 of the newly elected CRA members come from the Komeito side, none entered the leadership race. Backed by Japan’s largest lay Buddhist organisation, Soka Gakkai, Komeito ended its 26-year alliance with the LDP in October.

The new leader will face the challenge of easing internal frictions stemming from the perceived preferential treatment of Komeito-backed candidates during the selection process, which left the CDPJ side with just 21 seats after losing more than 100.

Komeito succeeded in electing all the candidates it fielded after being given priority on the CRA’s proportional representation list in return for withdrawing from the 289 single-member constituencies, including one previously held by Saito.

The CRA’s poor election showing has left it as the smallest main opposition party in post-war Japanese history, falling short of the minimum requirement to submit budget-related bills or a no-confidence motion against the Cabinet on its own.

Lawmakers from the CDPJ and Komeito in the other chamber, the House of Councillors, have yet to unite under the CRA umbrella.

-- BERNAMA-KYODO