Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) version 2.0 kicked off Thursday evening, with leader Toru Hashimoto vowing to pursue different policies from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the ruling coalition on energy and structural reform, and calling on like-minded members of the Democratic Party of Japan to join him.
Of Nippon Ishin's 62 Diet members, 37 — 31 in the lower chamber and six in the upper, stuck with Hashimoto rather than join a new party being formed by Shintaro Ishihara and his 23 followers. The majority are from Osaka or the Kansai area, including 26 first-term members, while Ishihara's allies have years, if not decades, of national political experience.
Hashimoto said that while Nippon Ishin and Abe's Liberal Democratic Party agree on much, there were two areas where they had differences.