A year after Osaka city voters rejected Osaka Ishin no Kai's most fundamental policy proposal in a referendum, the party finds itself heading south.
Ever since the referendum, the party has failed to gain traction outside the prefecture, unable to fill the void left by the retirement of its charismatic founder, and heads into the July Upper House election, and a possible simultaneous Lower House election, low in the opinion polls.
With the announcement earlier this month that former Osaka Ishin ally-turned-adversary Yoshimi Watanabe, once head of now defunct Your Party, will run with Osaka Ishin backing in the Upper House race, the party hopes to once again create an alternative to the Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito ruling coalition and traditional opposition parties.