With Osaka voters having said "no" for the second time to a merger referendum, Osaka Ishin no Kai (One Osaka) and its national party Nippon Ishin no Kai must find a new fundamental purpose or risk extinction.
The Nov. 1 referendum capped a five-year effort by Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura and Osaka Ishin leader and Osaka Mayor Ichiro Matsui to turn the city’s 24 wards into four semiautonomous wards. Yet despite local polls showing Matsui, Yoshimura and Osaka Ishin itself remain popular, and despite the fact that the anti-merger faction won by only 17,000 votes out of over 1.37 million cast, the party and its movement are in trouble.
What happened, then, and what happens next?