144 CDPJ Diet Members to Join Newly Founded Opposition Centrist Reform Alliance

The Yomiuri Shimbun

14:14 JST, January 21, 2026

The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan announced Tuesday that 144 of its members in the House of Representatives have decided to join the Centrist Reform Alliance, a newly founded opposition party launched by the CDPJ and Komeito.

The CDPJ has 148 lower house members. Two of them have already announced plans to retire. Only two of the remaining CDPJ lawmakers in the lower house will not join the new party.

Komeito will complete procedures for its members’ shift to the new party by Wednesday, and the Centrist Reform Alliance is set to be officially established as early as Thursday.

CDPJ Secretary General Jun Azumi told reporters at CDPJ party headquarters on Tuesday, “We are expecting to field more than 200 candidates.”

Azumi said that a total of 36 former Diet lawmakers and “new face” candidates of the CDPJ who are scheduled to run in the upcoming general election have decided to join the Centrist Reform Alliance.

From Komeito, 25 to 29 candidates will run in the election as those endorsed by the Centrist Reform Alliance.

The CDPJ members in the lower house who have decided not to join the Centrist Reform Alliance are Kazuhiro Haraguchi, elected from Saga Constituency No. 1, and Yamato Aoyama, elected from Ibaraki Constituency No. 6.

Haraguchi held a press conference in the Diet Building on Tuesday and said that he will run in the general election as a member of a political organization to be headed by himself. Aoyama will run in the election as an unaffiliated candidate.

Yoriko Madoka, a lower house member of the Democratic Party for the People elected from the Tokyo proportional representation bloc, posted on her X social media account, “I will hold a press conference about my candidacy from the Centrist Reform Alliance.”

It is the first time for a DPFP member to publicly express the intention to join the new party.