Japanese opposition forms new party

Two Japanese opposition parties formally announced their merger yesterday, in a plan announced in February to boost its election chances, local media reported.
The new Democratic Party, or Minshinto in Japanese, elected as its head Katsuya Okada, president of the former leading opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Kyodo News agency reported.
“Freedom, coexistence and responsibility for the future - those three ideas are the inaugural philosophy with which we start Minshinto,” Okada said, according to the Kyodo report.
“The name Minshinto means progress to be made together with the public. I believe it is a good name,” Okada was quoted as saying in news reports earlier this month.
The merger of the DPJ with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) is an attempt by a fractious opposition to mount a bigger challenge in upper house elections this summer.
In July 2013, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its New Komeito junior coalition partner won a comfortable majority in the House of Councillors, giving them control of both chambers of the country’s parliament.
But LDP prime minister Shinzo Abe’s government has been rocked by a slew of scandals involving members of his cabinet and party.
In late January, then economy minister Akira Amari, seen as Abe’s right-hand man, abruptly resigned over bribery allegations, and the approval rating for Abe’s cabinet dropped to 46.7% in January.
A lack of unity has long been in an issue in the opposition camp.
The upper house has elections for half of its 242 seats every three years. The LDP currently holds 116 seats, New Komeito 20, the former DPJ 59, the Japan Communist Party 11, and the former JIP 9.