Opposition Parties Score Win with Minister’s Sacking, but Hurdles Remain to Bringing Down Cabinet

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:56 JST, May 22, 2025

With opposition parties holding a majority in the lower house, they managed to band together on Wednesday and push the ruling bloc into a corner, forcing Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to sack the agriculture minister.

After Taku Eto was dismissed as agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister, Yoshihiko Noda, leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, called the move “inevitable.”

“[Eto] was not the right person for minister,” Noda told reporters. “I believe [his dismissal] was the result of opposition parties sharing the same position on the issue.”

Noda, who has failed to gain traction during the current Diet session, appeared to be trying to highlight his success with Eto’s dismissal.

Even so, due to their conflicting positions, the CDPJ and the other opposition parties face significant hurdles to passing a no-confidence motion against Ishiba’s Cabinet, which will be a major issue toward the end of the Diet session next month.

The Democratic Party for the People has argued that the CDPJ should make the first move since it is the largest opposition party.

“[The CDPJ] has called for a change of government,” said DPFP Secretary General Kazuya Shinba. “So it would be a shame if [the CDPJ] didn’t submit a no-confidence motion.”

The CDPJ chafed at Shinba’s comments, with one member saying, “He only said that because [the DPFP] won’t assume responsibility for the decision to submit [a motion].”

The CDPJ has been assessing what would happen after a non-confidence motion succeeded, which has left it on the fence about submitting a motion. If the motion were to pass, the Cabinet would have to dissolve the House of Representatives or resign en masse.

Since the CDPJ does not appear to enjoy robust public support, many of its members in the lower house do not want the chamber to be dissolved.

Some members are even hoping that Ishiba’s Cabinet will not resign, given the House of Councillors election that will be held this summer.

“Because Ishiba’s approval ratings are so low, it’d be to our advantage to face off against him as the prime minister in the upper house election,” said a senior member of the CDPJ.