Yoshimura to Remain as Nippon Ishin Chief

Jiji Press

12:39 JST, August 8, 2025

OSAKA (Jiji Press) — Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party) members on Thursday decided through a vote not to hold a leadership election, meaning that Hirofumi Yoshimura will remain as chief of the party.

Under its rules, the Japanese opposition party decides whether to hold a leadership election after a national or unified local election.

Covering 842 lawmakers, local assembly members, local government chiefs and others belonging to the JIP, the online voting was held for three days through Thursday following the July 20 election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the country’s parliament.

The vote ended with 93 people in favor of holding a leadership election and 521 against.

“It’s important that we work together as one in order to carry out our election promises,” Yoshimura, also governor of Osaka Prefecture, told reporters at the party’s headquarters in the namesake capital city of the western prefecture.

Yoshimura said that the JIP has “no intention at all” to join the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito under the current administration of Prime Minister and LDP President Shigeru Ishiba. Still, he remained coy when asked whether his party will join the ruling camp in the future, saying, “As of now, the answer is no.”

The JIP also decided to hold an election Friday to pick a new party co-leader to succeed Seiji Maehara, who has announced that he would resign in the wake of the party’s unimpressive showing in the Upper House election. Former Secretary-General Fumitake Fujita, Upper House lawmaker Shigefumi Matsuzawa and Takeshi Saiki, a member of the House of Representatives, the lower parliamentary chamber, filed their candidacies in the election, in which 57 party lawmakers will vote.

“We’ll aim again to become a national political party,” Fujita told reporters.

“We need to bring back our former self of challenging vested interests,” Saiki told the press.

“We do have to reform our party,” Matsuzawa said on X, formerly Twitter.

Yoshimura became the party’s chief after winning a leadership election held shortly after last October’s Lower House election.

Attempting to push for a generational turnover in the party’s leadership team, Yoshimura actively appointed younger party members to senior positions.

This, however, led to a rift between Yoshimura and members of the former leadership team, including his predecessor, Nobuyuki Baba, and Fujita.

In last month’s Upper House election, the JIP managed to clinch seven seats, one more than its target. But the number of votes it collected under the proportional representation system hit a record low.