CDPJ Stresses Confrontation With Ruling Parties at Convention; Willing to Delay Passage of Budget Proposal

The Yomiuri Shimbun

21:00 JST, February 25, 2025

The major opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan has decided on its action plan for fiscal 2025, calling for efforts to force the ruling parties down to less than 62 of the 124 seats contested in the House of Councillors election this summer.

The plan was approved at the CDPJ’s regular convention in Tokyo on Monday. It declared that the party would “lead the way in close cooperation to maximize the number of opposition party seats,” setting forth the CDPJ intention to lead the opposition parties in a joint struggle.

Sixty-six seats held by the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito will be contested in the upper house election. The CDPJ intends to drive the ruling coalition down to 62 or fewer seats.

As policies that should be given priority for early implementation, the CDPJ cited a ban on donations from corporations and organizations, allowing married couples to have different surnames, and the free provision of school lunches.

“The fight during the 150 days of the ordinary Diet session will determine the outcome of the upper house election,” CDPJ President Yoshihiko Noda said. “We’ll demonstrate our presence and aim for all our candidates to win seats.”

At the party convention, an amendment was approved to ease the requirements for candidacy in party presidential elections. The number of party members who need to recommend a candidate was changed from the current 20 to the lesser of 20 or 10% of the total number of Diet members belonging to the party.

The CDPJ’s clarification of its stance of confronting the ruling parties was spurred by the fact that its presence as the largest opposition party has been diminishing as other opposition parties — the Japan Innovation Party and the Democratic Party for the People — hold policy consultations with the ruling parties.

The CDPJ intends to gather momentum for the upcoming upper house election by strengthening its policy of opposing the ruling parties, to make its presence more felt.

“I said once that I would disarm, but now I am going into battle mode,” Noda said at the Monday convention.

Noda expressed his determination to press the government and the ruling parties to freeze an increase in the maximum amount to be borne by patients under the “high-cost medical expense benefit system,” which is intended to reduce the burden on patients when medical expenses become too high.

Noda also expressed his anger at the LDP’s proposed amendment to the Political Funds Control Law, saying that its disclosure standards are inadequate. “I’d like to tell the LDP, ‘Come back again after you cool off,’” he added.

Noda’s Diet strategy was originally to distance his party from the “schedule fight” at the Diet, saying that he would not hold the budget proposal hostage to prevent its passage before the end of the fiscal year. However, as the JIP and the ruling parties have substantially agreed to amend the budget proposal to include free high school tuition, the budget proposal is now certain to pass at the current Diet session.

The CDPJ is low in the pecking order regarding the amendment talks with the ruling parties. There is a growing sense of urgency within the party that its presence is too weak.

Noda is prepared to change policy direction and delay the passage of the budget proposal if no concessions are made on the high-cost medical expense benefit system.

At a press conference following the party convention, Noda stressed, “I don’t want to set up a provisional budget [due to a delay in passage of the budget proposal], but issues related to people’s lives must be given the highest priority.”