Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who launched his second Cabinet on Monday, faces a tightrope walk, as he leads a minority government following his ruling bloc's major election setback last month and thus must seek the support of opposition parties for passing budgets and legislation.

After losing their combined majority in the House of Representatives in the Oct. 27 general election, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its Komeito ally are particularly hoping to gain cooperation from the opposition Democratic Party for the People, which quadrupled its Lower House seats to 28 in the closely watched national election.

As the opposition side is seen ramping up pressure on the Ishiba government ahead of next summer's election for the Upper House, however, even a single mistake could put the administration into jeopardy.

Ishiba, also LDP president, met with DPP leader Yuichiro Tamaki and Yoshihiko Noda, head of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, separately on Monday, before the day's parliament votes in which the prime minister secured re-election, to seek their support for his administration.

"We want to take the opposition's views into account humbly and decide each and every thing in a transparent way," he said.

For the past 12 years or so, the LDP has dominated Japanese politics, so bills and budgets only needed approval from the government and the LDP-Komeito coalition to be passed by the parliament. Now that the ruling camp has lost its Lower House majority, however, open discussions between the ruling and opposition sides are indispensable.

The opposition bloc gained the chairpersonships for seven of the lower chamber's 17 standing committees, including the Budget Committee, the main battlefield for debates on key issues. Before the election, ruling bloc members chaired 15 committees.

Expecting very tough parliamentary deliberations under the circumstances, the LDP has instructed government agencies and ministries to narrow down bills to be submitted to the parliament.

"Policy discussions within the government have all but stalled," a senior official from an economy-related government agency said.

Seeking policy-by-policy partial alliances with the opposition side in an effort to run the administration as smoothly as possible, Ishiba, LDP Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama and others have set the DPP as the main target for the strategy.

But the ruling camp has few target options at a time when another opposition party, Nippon Ishin no Kai, which had tried to develop close relations with the coalition, is now starting to distance itself from the administration following the LDP-Komeito pair's poor showing in the general election.

The prime minister has told people close to him that the DPP, the third-biggest opposition force in the Lower House, has similar policies to the LDP. He has begun considering a hike in the ¥1.03 million annual income threshold for income tax payment, a step demanded by the DPP, despite having no ideas on how to make up for a tax revenue plunge that would entail.

Meanwhile, some in the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, or Rengo, the umbrella body for labor unions in the country and a major supporter of the DPP, are critical of Tamaki's strategy of cozying up to the ruling bloc.

After Tamaki's extramarital affair came to light Monday, senior government officials focused their attention on whether the DPP leader would step down.

While Tamaki said later on Monday that he would remain as party chief, an official from the Prime Minister's Office lamented the situation, saying, "The administration is now liable to be thrown off balance by an opposition party scandal."

The LDP's drubbing in the general election has highlighted voters' anger over its slush funds scandal involving intraparty factions.

The CDP plans to continue grilling the ruling side on the issue ahead of the Upper House election next summer, believing that the LDP has not done enough to take responsibility for the scandal.

"We have drawn up our views mainly on abolishing corporate and group donations, and prohibiting the inheritance of political funds among family members," Noda told Ishiba in a meeting Monday, expressing his party's intent to submit a related bill to the extraordinary Diet session expected to be convened late this month.

Nippon Ishin and the Japanese Communist Party are expected to back the political donation ban, and the issue is seen becoming the focus of the efforts for a possible further revision of the political funds control law.

Such a ban would deal a heavy financial blow to the LDP, however, with one middle-ranking party member saying that corporate and group donations must be allowed to continue.

At a meeting of LDP lawmakers after the talks with Noda, Ishiba said he plans to amend the political funds control law again within this year, but stopped short of mentioning the fate of corporate and group donations.

Meanwhile, opposition parties are not firmly united in their efforts against the government. In Monday's parliamentary votes to name a prime minister, including a runoff, Nippon Ishin and DPP lawmakers wasted their ballots by voting for their own party chiefs instead of Noda.

With each party looking to make their own gains, it is difficult to predict how national politics will proceed.

Deliberations on the government's draft fiscal 2025 budget will likely represent the first major showdown between the ruling and opposition camps in next year's regular parliament session starting in January.

While Ishiba apparently aims to overcome this challenge chiefly by collaborating mainly with the DPP, a baffled senior LDP official said, "We have entered uncharted territory."