Just over a year after Nippon Ishin no Kai chose Nobuyuki Baba as leader, the center-right party largely concentrated in the Kansai region is polling well against other opposition parties as it selects candidates for an eventual general election.

But within the Nippon Ishin leadership, there are growing differences over the party’s future direction, including whether it’s better to remain an opposition party or consider joining the ruling coalition, given that Nippon Ishin shares many policy goals of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, such as increased defense spending and constitutional revision.

Since taking over from Osaka mayor and Nippon Ishin co-founder Ichiro Matsui as party leader in August last year, Baba, 58, has indicated on several occasions that the possibility of Nippon Ishin joining the ruling coalition, under the right conditions, was not out of the question.

However, Nippon Ishin co-leader and Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura, 48, later appeared on a Yomiuri TV program and said joining the ruling coalition would lead to the party’s extinction. It would be better, he said, to remain a strong opposition party for now.

In July, Baba courted controversy when he said Nippon Ishin was aiming to become the “second LDP.” He denied speculation about a tie-up with the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan — the main opposition party — saying there was no future in that, given how different Nippon Ishin was from the more center-left CDP. Having the LDP and Nippon Ishin as Japan's two main political parties was preferable, he added.

Baba also got into trouble when he said it would be good if the Japanese Communist Party ceased to exist, a comment which drew sharp criticism from other opposition parties as well as from Komeito.

Masato Kamikubo, a political scientist at Ritsumeikan University, says that Nippon Ishin's contrasting remarks show the party is now struggling with what direction to take.

“Should it be considered a complementary force to the LDP, since Baba called it the second LDP? Or should it overhaul its policies, and make its confrontational stance clear by emphasizing its differences with the LDP? I think the party is torn between these two directions,” he says.

Some of the differences in views within Nippon Ishin can be traced back to how members see the party’s primary goal of reforming Osaka, including merging the city’s wards in the name of a more efficient local government.

Yoshimura, a local politician, is focused on local reform, as was Matsui. But Nippon Ishin Diet members, starting with Baba, don’t necessarily see the need for local reform the same way Matsui, in particular, did, Kamikubo says.

“Matsui fully appreciated the need for reforms in Osaka and insisted they be applied nationwide. Baba, on the other hand, is a Diet member. He thinks that reform policies in national politics are not as simple as applying reforms in Osaka.”

The LDP could, for example, take advantage of the differences of opinion within Nippon Ishin by suggesting negotiations over the possibility of it joining the ruling coalition.

“Many Nippon Ishin members are those who originally wanted to run for office for the LDP but could not do so, for whatever reasons. However, if negotiations begin, I think there's a possibility the party could split between those who don’t mind joining the coalition and those who don’t want to,” Kamikubo says.

Nippon Ishin’s other headache involves the 2025 Osaka Kansai Expo and the lack of applications to build foreign pavilions. As of Sept. 1, just four out of more than 50 expected countries had submitted construction applications.

The expo was awarded to Osaka in November 2018 after Matsui and Yoshimura pushed the central government to support a bid for it. Now, however, it’s in deep trouble and there are still doubts over whether it will be ready on time. That has led to speculation about political damage to Nippon Ishin if the situation fails to improve.

But Kamikubo says that, so far, there is no sign voters are ready to blame Nippon Ishin for the expo's lack of progress.

“The expo's problems are structural ones rooted in the Japanese economy and society resulting from high prices for imported materials and labor shortages. The public understands that the expo's problems are basically linked to the LDP-led central government,” he says.

Last week, Kishida met with Yoshimura and other Osaka officials and said that while preparations were way behind, the central government would step up its support for the expo. The government and expo organizers say it will go ahead as scheduled.