The Democratic Party of Japan marked a fresh start as the Democratic Party in the wake of a merger with the Japan Innovation Party.

The DPJ lost the reins of government after a House of Representatives election in 2012. Since then, opposition parties have lacked momentum.

The DPJ had been unable to regain support, and other opposition parties that labeled themselves as third-pole forces had also run out of steam.

If opposition parties that had split into smaller parties are united again, it will spur the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has lowered its guard as the overwhelmingly strongest force, to awaken.

In the past, mergers of opposition parties have been an effective election tactics. In a House of Councilors election in 1995, non-LDP parties merged to form the now defunct Shinshinto (the New Frontier Party), and put up a strong fight.

In upper house elections in 1998 and 2004, the DPJ drastically increased its seats by gaining momentum through a merger with other opposition parties. In the upcoming upper house election this summer, the DP will likely also experience a degree of such synergy.

DP leader Katsuya Okada said that the new opposition party “aims for another way, different from that of Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe.”

If the DP only aims to block amendments of the constitution and deny policy actions of the Abe Cabinet, its behavior is no different from that of the now defunct Japan Socialist Party, an opposition party that placed importance on resistance.

The DP does not have the power to solely fight against the alliance of the LDP and Komeito. Though the DP supports a scheme led by the Japanese Communist Party for adjusting candidates in constituencies for the next upper house election, the meaning will totally change if the move spreads to the next lower house election.

As long as a majority force in the lower house controls the government, a party’s cooperation with others in a lower house election means that they will share control of government.

Inside the DP, the presence of conservative members who say they cannot cooperate with the JCP is not felt significantly.

The problem is that the DP has not clarified its relationship with the JCP.

Is it good for the Japanese politics if the DP joins hands with the JCP in election battles without any proper cause, or gets closer to the JCP only because the DP wants its votes?

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who corrected the left-leaning stances of the Labour Party while it was an opposition party and then established his long-lasting administration, expressed his regret in his memoir “A Journey.”

He wrote that he often regretted that actions taken while the Labour Party was in opposition adversely affected his administration like a boomerang after his party won the general election.

Blair also wrote that an opposition party wanting more votes tends to act in consideration of short-term benefits. A change of government could occur. For the largest opposition party, having a policy line that is realistic and can stabilize political situations is essential.

Even though the name of the DPJ has ceased to exist, the DP is not allowed to repeat the failures of the previous DPJ-led administration, in which the party created a manifesto that was impossible to carry out.

If the DP aims to be a sound political party capable of running the government, the party’s only option is to continue asking itself this question: Could the DP really manage the government?

Editorial Desk
(Asia News Network/The Japan News )