Motegi vows to seek new ruling bloc if elected LDP chief

Former Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi announced on Wednesday that he will run for president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party next month, promising to seek a new coalition framework to support the LDP-led minority government and revive the country’s economy if elected.

Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi intends to hold a press conference next week to announce his bid to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, while Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi is also expected to declare his candidacy, according to sources familiar with the matter.

At a press conference, Motegi mentioned two opposition parties, the Japan Innovation Party and the Democratic Party for the People, as potential coalition partners who share similar views on basic foreign policy, security, energy, and constitutional issues.

“We would be unable to put forth any policies if we continued to seek cooperation with opposition parties, policy by policy,” said Motegi, who was the first LDP lawmaker to officially declare his intention to run in the Oct. 4 election.

On Sunday, Ishiba abruptly announced his resignation to accept responsibility for his party’s major defeat in the July 20 House of Councillors election, in which the LDP-Komeito coalition lost its upper house majority.

Since losing its majority in the more powerful House of Representatives in October last year, the ruling bloc now relies on opposition parties to pass legislation.

The JIP and the DPP are the second-largest opposition parties in the lower and upper chambers, respectively.

Following Motegi’s comments, JIP leader Hirofumi Yoshimura told reporters in Osaka that his party will “examine how seriously” the LDP takes JIP policies in its campaign pledges for the July upper house election, such as social security reform.

DPP leader Yuichiro Tamaki said on a TV program that quickly forming a coalition with the ruling camp would be “quite a high hurdle” for his party, adding that whether they could agree on each policy.

Motegi, 69, pledged to set out a course for the “revival” of the party and Japan’s economy “within two years,” and tackle price surges as a “top priority issue” by creating a state subsidy system worth trillions of yen for local government, among other measures.

The LDP heavyweight, who has held key posts in the past, including the LDP’s secretary general, also said he does not plan on giving residents cash handouts to ease the impact of persistent inflation.

Motegi is reportedly regarded by U.S. President Donald Trump as a “tough” and skilled negotiator.

Kobayashi, a 50-year-old former Finance Ministry bureaucrat, and Hayashi, a 64-year-old former foreign minister, are both Harvard-educated.

Former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi has also decided to run in the election, according to a party source.

In a related move on Wednesday, opposition parties demanded that the LDP-led ruling coalition promptly convene an extraordinary parliamentary session, airing concerns over a “political vacuum” following Ishiba’s announcement of resignation.

Opposition parties have asked the ruling bloc to convene an extra Diet session this month. But Junichi Ishii, the head of the LDP’s upper house affairs committee, has said it is unlikely to start until mid-October “at the earliest.”

The largest opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the JIP, the DPP and others submitted the joint request signed by 239 House of Representatives members — more than half of the house — to Fukushiro Nukaga, the lower chamber’s speaker.

The Constitution stipulates that the cabinet must convene an extraordinary Diet session when it is sought by a quarter or more of lawmakers of either the 465-member lower house or the 248-seat upper chamber, although it sets no time limit for doing so.

In the request, the opposition forces said their agreement with the ruling camp to abolish the provisional gasoline tax rate and other measures to address rising living costs needs to be deliberated in parliament.

“We want Prime Minister Ishiba to take it seriously and convene an extraordinary session as soon as possible,” Hirofumi Ryu, the CDPJ’s Diet affairs chief, told reporters after submitting the request, emphasizing that the demand came from more than half of the lower house’s members.