Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura announced Tuesday that he will run for leader of Nippon Ishin no Kai, the Kansai-centered national political party.

Yoshimura's decision comes after the current leader, Lower House member Nobuyuki Baba, decided to resign following the Oct. 27 election, which saw Nippon Ishin finish with 38 seats, down from 43.

At a news conference to announce his candidacy Tuesday, Yoshimura said he decided to run due to a sense that the party was now in crisis.

“I feel the significance of Nippon Ishin as a national party is beginning to waver and is becoming less visible,” Yoshimura said.

Yoshimura said that he is trying to rebuild Nippon Ishin, and as part of that it is important for the party to reaffirm its fundamental values. Those values emphasize policies that are future oriented, he added.

“As I see it, Nippon Ishin is not a party that just picks the apples in front of it, but is a party that cultivates the soil in which the apples grow,” he said.

Yoshimura said the three basic purposes of the party were to create a political party for the next generation, realize a "regional block" system of government — which would ultimately merge current prefectures and give the resulting larger regional block greater autonomy — and change the culture of Nagatacho, Japan’s political center, so it is more responsive to modern needs.

The 49-year-old Yoshimura is quite popular in Osaka. A lawyer by training, Yoshimura began his political career in 2011, winning a seat in the Osaka Municipal Assembly, before going on to parliament with a win in the 2014 Lower House election.

In 2015, Yoshimura resigned his parliamentary seat, returning to Osaka to run for mayor. He defeated a candidate backed by the Liberal Democratic Party, Democratic Party of Japan and Japanese Communist Party.

In the 2019 Osaka gubernatorial election, Yoshimura beat a former deputy governor backed by the LDP and Komeito to win his current post. He was reelected in 2023.

The party leadership election takes place on Dec. 1, and the campaign kicks off on Sunday.

Members from outside the Kansai region have shown a willingness to run. Nippon Ishin Deputy Secretary-General and Kanagawa-based Lower House member Ryuna Kanemura, 45, said Tuesday he intends to run.

Others who may enter the race include Lower House lawmaker Seiki Soramoto, 60, who represents a Hiroshima district, and Shigefumi Matsuzawa, 66, who represents Kanagawa Prefecture in the Upper House.

Each of the prospective candidates faces the challenge of first securing the required 50 signatures of support to stand for election, such as from members of parliament and local assembly members. That compares with the 20 needed for the LDP and Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan presidential elections.