CDP, Nippon Ishin to Continue Cooperation in Regular Diet Session

Tokyo, Jan. 2 (Jiji Press)--The leading opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party), a major opposition force, plan to keep their cooperation intact in the upcoming regular parliamentary session to pit themselves against the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

This is because the CDP-Nippon Ishin collaboration bore fruit to a certain extent in the extraordinary session of the Diet, Japan's parliament, that ended in December, such as the enactment of a new law to aid victims of problematic behavior by religious and other organizations including the Unification Church, formally called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.

But candidates to be fielded by the two parties are expected to clash in a series of local elections set for April.

"We could produce major results," CDP chief Kenta Izumi said at a press conference on Dec. 23, stressing the significance of his party's cooperation with Nippon Ishin. "It's important that opposition parties join hands to correct what is wrong in the ruling coalition," he added.

"(The end of the extraordinary Diet session) does not mean the termination of our parties' ties," Nippon Ishin leader Nobuyuki Baba told a press conference on Dec. 10, after the end of the parliamentary session that day.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]