Shina, Ogawa Running for Leadership of Japan’s CRA Party

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:07 JST, February 12, 2026

Former Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan members Takeshi Shina and Junya Ogawa on Thursday filed their candidacies for the Centrist Reform Alliance’s leadership as official campaigning for the race started the same day.

Voting to elect a new party leader is scheduled to take place at a general meeting of CRA lawmakers on Feb. 13.

CRA coleaders Yoshihiko Noda and Tetsuo Saito announced their intention to step down from their posts to take responsibility for the party’s crushing defeat in Sunday’s House of Representatives election.

Shina, 59, a former parliamentary vice minister for internal affairs and communications, and Ogawa, 54, a former CDPJ secretary general, will face each other in the leadership race. The main issue in the race is expected to be strategies for rebuilding the CRA, a party formed by the CDPJ and Komeito. The CRA won 49 seats in the lower house election and lost 118 seats previously held by its members.

“The party is in the middle of adversity, but we must hold up high the CRA banner and move forward for the next generation,” Shina said at a press conference jointly held with Ogawa at the party’s headquarters in Tokyo. “I’m determined to take the lead, face any storm and move forward.”

“In rebuilding the party, I want to put priority on rebuilding people’s lives,” Ogawa said. “The largest opposition party has the important task of monitoring the current administration’s power. I have no intention of neglecting this task, too.”

The 49 lower house members of the party will vote in the leadership election. As a special Diet session is set to convene on Wednesday, the party will elect its new leader on Feb. 13, a day after the campaign started. Due to time constraints, the candidates were not required to obtain endorsements to run in the election. The new CRA leader’s term will last until March 2027.

In the lower house election, former Komeito members received preferential placement on the CRA list for the proportional representation segment, causing frustration among former CDPJ members. Given that, party unity is also likely to be a key issue in the leadership race.