Yukio Edano was on Thursday elected the inaugural president of Japan’s largest opposition party, the newly expanded Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, amid talk among some ruling party members of a possible snap general election, perhaps as early as next month.
Edano, 56, received 107 of the votes cast by the 149 Diet members who comprise the new party. Challenger Kenta Izumi, 46, who had been the policy chief of the Democratic Party for the People, garnered 42 votes.
There had also been a debate over whether to keep the CDP name for the new party, as Edano wanted, or call it the Democratic Party of Japan, as many members from the Democratic Party for the People preferred. In the end, 94 of the 149 lawmakers voted to continue to be called the CDP.