With so many parties — and their seemingly mix-and-match policy positions — vying in the Dec. 16 Lower House election, voters are facing a difficult choice. Even so, all the sudden mergers and policy rejiggering suggest the new parties would be no better than their predecessors at breaking the tradition of broken promises in politics.

No sooner had Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda declared the dissolution of the Lower House, new parties, most prominently Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) and Nippon Mirai no To (Tomorrow Party of Japan) emerged, holding out the promise to voters of putting an end to the "two-party system" dominated by the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan.

When the current Lower House makeup was established, with 300 single-seat constituencies and 180 proportional representation seats, the Diet was roughly headed toward a long-sought-after two-party system, seen as a way to end the decades-long rule by the LDP, which routinely held a majority and faced small parties that only knew how to voice opposition, not demonstrate leadership.