Komeito, the Liberal Democratic Party’s long-time junior coalition partner, said Friday it plans to leave the ruling camp, parting ways with the LDP and its new president, Sanae Takaichi, after the LDP failed to accept the party’s proposal on political donations.
Komeito’s decision to end the 26-year partnership with the LDP means the ruling party will need to court opposition parties — likely the Democratic Party for the People or Nippon Ishin no Kai, or both — to vote Takaichi in as prime minister in the upcoming parliamentary session to be convened later this month.
Komeito leader Tetsuo Saito told Takaichi in a meeting on Friday afternoon that his party will leave the coalition. The party’s election campaign support for LDP candidates in national elections — crucial for some of the ruling party’s lawmakers — will be suspended as well, Saito said.
“We’ll, for now, put an end to the LDP-Komeito coalition and take it back to the drawing board,” Saito told reporters after the meeting, adding that its lawmakers will vote for Saito as prime minister.
“Komeito will propose its own policies and become the axis of a moderate reformist movement and call on other parties, including the LDP, to move politics forward,” Saito said.
At issue was whether the LDP was willing to accept a proposal by Komeito, which is keen on being seen as the politically clean party, to have stricter restrictions on political donations from businesses.
Jointly drafted with the DPP in March, the proposal stipulates limiting beneficiaries of corporate donations to party headquarters and prefectural chapters, and banning donations to political groups headed by individual politicians — which is essentially a donation to lawmakers.
The LDP — by far the top beneficiary of corporate donations — is seeking to avoid restrictions on such donations to individual lawmakers.
Saito said Takaichi’s response — that the party will “consider what to do from here on” — was too insufficient to continue as partners.
“Although we will no longer be coalition partners, we shook hands, telling each other that we’ll continue to work toward resolving these (political funds) issues together with the trust built over the past 26 years,” said Saito.
He added that Komeito won’t oppose every bill an LDP-led administration submits, including budgets and bills on which the two parties have worked together.
Komeito Secretary-General Makoto Nishida said that the party made the critical decision to axe talks and leave the coalition on Friday to prevent delaying parliament from convening.
But even with the political donations aside, Komeito has been wary of the LDP under Takaichi, known as a conservative within the party, and it had previously threatened to leave the coalition if Takaichi failed to compromise.
Along with discussing the LDP’s stance on political donations, when Saito met with Takaichi on Tuesday, he laid out several other issues that concerned his party and its supporters: the LDP’s stance on its political funds scandal; Takaichi’s past controversial remarks on Japan’s wartime history and her visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines Class-A war criminals; and her hard-line stance on immigration.
Saito said Friday that the two latter points had been resolved but not the issue of political donations and the LDP’s political funds scandal.
In a meeting with about 100 local assembly Komeito members Thursday night, half were against withdrawing from the coalition while the other half insisted on leaving.
The LDP alone currently retains 196 seats in the Lower House, far fewer than the 233 necessary for a majority. Without Komeito’s 24 seats, the party will face additional hurdles to muster the support to elect Takaichi as prime minister.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting with Saito, Takaichi said that Friday’s agenda was only supposed to be about Komeito reporting what it had discussed with local assembly members Thursday evening.
“I was unilaterally informed of Komeito’s withdrawal from the coalition,” Takaichi said, adding that “It’s a pity, but that’s the conclusion they’ve reached.”
Takaichi said she tried reasoning with Saito, arguing that she and LDP secretary-general Suzuki alone could not make any decision before following party procedure and that the two parties should meet again next week.
“Personally, I think that setting up an auditing committee for political funds is a good idea,” said Takaichi.
She said she would convene a meeting of LDP executives later Friday evening.
Takaichi added that Saito told her that, regardless of who had become LDP party president, Komeito would have voiced the same concerns on the same issues.
“I’ll do my utmost to gain the necessary support,” Takaichi said, referring to the upcoming parliamentary election for the post of prime minister.
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