Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party and the Innovation Party announced on Friday (October 17) that they have made “significant progress” in their negotiations regarding an alliance. The parliament is scheduled to hold a vote next Tuesday (October 21), with Sanae Takaichi poised to become Japan’s first female prime minister.
In a press conference on Friday, Fumitake Fujita, co-representative of the Innovation Party, announced that negotiations with the Liberal Democratic Party towards the formation of a coalition government have made “significant progress.”
“We are currently in the stage of discussing details such as wording, explanations, and deadlines,” he said.
Fujita also revealed that due to the cooperation becoming “difficult” with the Constitutional Democratic Party and the Democratic Party for the People in the prime minister nomination vote, continuing to move forward has become “difficult to achieve,” and the Innovation Party has officially terminated negotiations with the two parties.
Fujita pointed out that there are still several policy and procedural issues to be resolved between the Innovation Party and the Liberal Democratic Party before the final decision is made on Monday (October 20); however, aligning with other opposition parties is “no longer under consideration.”
“We cannot continue negotiations in this situation to support their respective leaders in the prime minister election,” he said.
Previously, the ruling party and opposition parties agreed in principle at a Lower House steering committee meeting to hold an election in the parliament on Tuesday to choose a successor to the outgoing Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
However, this schedule is still contingent on the outcome of negotiations between the Liberal Democratic Party and Japan’s Innovation Party.
Takayuki Kobayashi, the head of the Liberal Democratic Party’s Policy Research Council who attended the negotiation meetings, also confirmed to reporters that significant progress has been made in negotiations with the Japan Innovation Party.
Prior to the two days of negotiations, Sanae Takaichi reached an agreement on initiating policy dialogue with the counterpart from the Japan Innovation Party and Governor of Osaka Prefecture, Hirofumi Yoshimura, on Wednesday (October 15).
Yoshimura had previously stated that if they could reach an agreement on policies, the third largest political force in the Lower House would support Sanae Takaichi in the vote.
The Liberal Democratic Party is actively pushing for a prime ministerial election to be held next Tuesday (October 21). It is estimated that with 196 votes in the House of Representatives from the Liberal Democratic Party and 35 votes from the Innovation Party, the total would reach 231 votes, just two votes shy of the required 233 majority. If the Liberal Democratic Party can secure the support of a small party or minority legislators, Sanae Takaichi is expected to be elected smoothly in the first round of voting, becoming Japan’s first female prime minister in history.