CDPJ, Komeito Agree to Form New Party in Preparation for Lower House Election (UPDATE 1)

The Japan News

16:12 JST, January 15, 2026

The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Komeito agreed on Thursday to form a new party, as they plan to cooperate in a House of Representatives election.

The agreement was reached when CDPJ President Yoshihiko Noda and Komeito leader Tetsuo Saito met after the two opposition parties held intraparty discussions earlier in the day.

The new party is aimed at uniting centrist forces to counter the administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

“We’ve agreed to fight together by forming a new party,” Noda said after meeting with Saito. “This is an opportunity to put centrist forces in the middle of [Japan’s] politics.”

The name of the new party will be decided soon. According to Noda, the two parties will work on the details next week.

“In the upcoming lower house election, we intend to campaign by emphasizing how crucial it is for Japan to expand the bloc of centrist forces,” Saito said.

The CDPJ and Komeito intend to launch the new party without dissolving the original parties, so they will continue to exist. CDPJ and Komeito members in the House of Councillors will remain with their respective parties, Saito said.

CDPJ and Komeito members in the lower house will leave their parties and join the new party. Such procedures will be conducted next week, Noda said.

Saito said Komeito agreed to withdraw from races in the single-seat constituency segment of the lower house election, including the four constituencies currently held by Saito and other Komeito lawmakers, once a new party is formed.

The CDPJ and Komeito also agreed on cooperation using a unified list of candidates in the lower house election’s proportional representation segment.

Intraparty discussions

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Komeito’s central secretariat held a meeting on Thursday morning at which members agreed to entrust party leader Tetsuo Saito with decisions about future moves on a new party. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan held a general meeting of its Diet members later on the same day to hear their opinions.

At a meeting of the CDPJ’s standing executive committee on Tuesday, party President Yoshihiko Noda obtained a mandate from the party to decide its future moves. He explained plans for the new party during the general meeting of CDPJ lawmakers at the Diet Building on Thursday afternoon.

Noda and Saito had agreed on Monday to explore ways for cooperation at a “higher level,” and the two parties have been making arrangements since then.

Seeking to secure more seats

Under a unified proportional representation list system, multiple parties incorporate their officially endorsed candidate lists for proportional representation elections into a single list. It is believed this approach could accumulate more votes and potentially secure more seats.

Both parties aim to maximize seats through this method. In the proportional representation race of the 2024 lower house election, in which 176 seats were up for grabs, the CDPJ secured about 11.56 million votes and 44 seats, while Komeito obtained about 5.96 million votes and 20 seats. Combined, they surpassed the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s 59 seats.

Komeito, in particular, places emphasis on the proportional representation system and puts top priority on the recovery of votes gained through this system.

However, numerous challenges stand in their way. Since proportional representation winners are determined by the order on the party list, having candidates from multiple parties on the same list creates conflicting interests.

Furthermore, candidates who run in single-seat districts for either the CDPJ or Komeito cannot simultaneously run on the unified proportional representation list. Of the 148 CDPJ members elected in the 2024 lower house election, 43 recovered through proportional representation. If dual candidacy is not available, many could lose their seats. Forming a new party is seen as a potential solution to this flaw, but it is no easy task to establish a new party’s presence among voters in a short election campaign.

Some Komeito members are cautious about such an idea as it intensifies their party’s confrontation with the LDP. Within the CDPJ, some suggest adding the Democratic Party for the People to the unified list, but DPFP executives are dismissive.

Prof. Toru Yoshida of Doshisha University said, “For the CDPJ, it [the system] could be a means to draw in Komeito and the DPFP, but voters would find it difficult because they wouldn’t know which party’s candidate their vote ultimately supports.”