Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is seeking a vote of confidence for his "Abenomics" policies in the Dec. 14 election of the Lower House. But as the chamber was officially dissolved Friday, the opposition parties still lack a common ground beyond their unanimous criticism of Abe's economic policies as failures based on recent economic data.
As Nagatacho effectively entered the election campaign mode this week, Your Party, one of the "third-force" political parties that gained seats in the last election in 2012, decided to disband and end its five-year history — capping a wave of realignment in the opposition camp, which has been dwarfed by the ruling coalition of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito over the past two years. The breakup of the party came after recent talks for a merger with the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, broke down due to internal discord between the current party leadership and its founder Yoshimi Watanabe, who continued to advocate cooperation with the ruling alliance even after resigning as party chief earlier this year over a political funds scandal. Some of the party's members are expected to join the DPJ, while others may remain independent or join other parties.
Two years ago, the "third-force" parties, which also included the then Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party), emerged as a new element in the political landscape as the LDP was about to oust the DPJ from power. In the last general election in December 2012, these parties combined won more proportional representation votes than either the LDP or the DPJ. But as the third-force parties competed with each other in many of the 300 single-seat constituencies, the LDP went on to win about 80 percent of the seats contested in the electoral districts while garnering far less than half the popular votes. It was calculated that the LDP-Komeito alliance, which grabbed a two-thirds majority of the Lower House, would have lost more than 50 seats if the new parties had collaborated in the election campaign.