Centrist Reform Alliance Officially Launched to Become Largest Opposition Party, Pledges Realistic Policies

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:09 JST, January 23, 2026

The Centrist Reform Alliance was officially launched Thursday, but questions remain over whether what is now the largest opposition party can forge a united front just weeks before a House of Representatives election will be held.

The CRA, which was formed by the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Komeito, also revealed that it will field 199 candidates in single-seat constituencies and 28 candidates in the election’s proportional representation segment. The new party announced the main points of its election pledges, which take a realistic approach as the party seeks to demonstrate that it could handle holding the reins of government.

The party was launched at a convention held in the Diet Building in Tokyo.

According to CRA sources, the new party has a total of 165 lawmakers — 144 from the CDPJ and 21 from Komeito. The party’s top ranks feature a joint representation model, with CDPJ chief Yoshihiko Noda and his Komeito counterpart, Tetsuo Saito, being appointed coleaders. CDPJ Secretary General Jun Azumi and Komeito Acting Secretary General Hiromasa Nakano were named CRA secretaries general.

“This founding convention is being held only one day before the lower house is dissolved. We made it just in time,” Noda said at the meeting. “I’m overcome with emotion.”

Saito expressed his resolve when it was his turn with the microphone. “We will both put aside the parties we had stood up for, and fight under a new flag. We’ll change Japanese politics from now by placing this centrist force at its heart,” Saito said.

The CRA election pledges announced Thursday were aimed at putting “ordinary citizens first,” such as by reducing the consumption tax rate on food to zero, and included “realistic security policies.” The basic policies decided by the new party Monday deemed several key security-related laws to be “constitutional,” and also supported the restart of the nation’s nuclear reactors.

The former CDPJ was formed in 2017 when previous Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano and left-wing members of the Democratic Party linked up with other liberal forces. The party insisted the security-related laws that permitted exercising the right of collective self-defense in certain situations were “unconstitutional.”

Even after morphing into its latest iteration in 2020, the CDPJ vowed to “abolish the unconstitutional parts” of those laws and to realize a society that had “zero” dependence on nuclear energy.

The CDPJ had even been mocked as the “Constitutional Communist Party of Japan” because it had reached out to the Japanese Communist Party to cooperate in elections, and many observers were skeptical that it possessed the ability to be a ruling party.

Consideration for Edano

Noda took over as CDPJ leader in September 2024. Noda set about reviewing the party’s stance to take more realistic policies on issues including security and nuclear power, as he sought the cooperation of Komeito, which last year ended its coalition with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

In October last year, Edano said the security-related laws “don’t need to be changed.”

Noda remained mindful of showing consideration to Edano and, through Azumi, kept him posted on each step of progress made in discussions with Komeito.

On Jan. 15, the CDPJ and Komeito agreed to form a new party. Edano posted a message on X expressing regrets that the CDPJ could not maintain its political stances. At the same time, however, he said he supported the plans pitched by the leadership, and added that “the biggest question right now [for us] is how to combat populism that stirs up division and confrontation?”

Once Edano came around to accepting the tie-up, the path was clear for liberal-leaning lawmakers in the CDPJ to join the new party.

Sealing tie-up got priority

Only a handful of lawmakers decided to break away from the newly minted CRA. This apparently reflects the fact that lawmakers could not get too hung up on ideologies and policy positions with a lower house election looming.

On Tuesday, Reiko Matsushita, a lower house lawmaker from the CDPJ, posted on her X account, “I oppose restarting nuclear reactors. I will do my best in the CRA after joining the new party.” This triggered a barrage of criticism, and the post has since been deleted.

Democratic Party for the People leader Yuichiro Tamaki was skeptical about the CRA’s basic policies. “My honest impression is that what will be core policies can change this easily,” Tamaki said at a press conference Tuesday.

The CDPJ amended its basic policies as it prioritized bringing Komeito into the fold. However, some observers believe this could create discord within the new party after the election is done and dusted.