Parties Gear Up to Fight Ultra-Short Election Campaign

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:06 JST, January 23, 2026

Ruling and opposition parties will fight an unprecedentedly short election campaign that will officially begin Tuesday. The House of Representatives was dissolved Friday, and a general election will be held and votes counted on Feb. 8.

The Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party will face their first national election as a new coalition government, while the new party Centrist Reform Alliance will make its debut.

“This lower house election is an extremely important battle that will determine whether the nation’s helm can be entrusted to Prime Minister [Sanae] Takaichi,” Masaji Matsuyama, chairperson of LDP Members’ General Assembly in the House of Councillors, said at a party meeting on Friday morning.

The LDP, buoyed by high Cabinet approval ratings, plans to place Takaichi front and center in the election.

LDP Election Strategy Committee Chairman Keiji Furuya repeatedly called the race “an election to choose Takaichi.”

With the dissolution of election cooperation with Komeito, an LDP senior member said, “We have no choice but to capture the Prime Minister’s popularity among independent voters.”

JIP coleader Fumitake Fujita said in a party meeting Friday morning, “We want to work to surpass our current strength.”

Without election cooperation, the JIP will face off against the LDP in about 80 constituencies. Despite having joined in the ruling coalition, the JIP has not been able to bolster its strength.

“The JIP is the one to advance Japan’s major reforms. The LDP alone cannot do it,” Fujita said.

Yoshihiko Noda, coleader of the Centrist Reform Alliance, gave a street speech Friday morning in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, at which local lawmakers from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Komeito appeared for support.

“Only one year and three months have passed since the last lower house election. It is highly questionable whether this election has legitimacy,” Noda said.

The Centrist Reform Alliance has made zero consumption tax on foodstuffs a pillar of its platform. It proposes creating a government-backed fund to secure the necessary financing. Establishing such a fund is a policy championed by Komeito, which submitted a bill to create the fund to the upper house Friday morning.

The Democratic Party for the People aims to field around 100 candidates and was set to announce additional candidates. Sanseito was expected to announce its election pledges, which center on abolishing consumption tax.