Tokyo governor's new party unveils election candidates

The new political party led by Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike unveiled Tuesday its first batch of candidates for the Oct. 22 lower house election, aiming to ultimately mount an attempt to take power from the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The Party of Hope named a total of 192 candidates, 191 of whom will run in single-seat electoral districts in the 465-seat House of Representatives. They will all run on proportional representation lists, giving the 191 a chance to get seats even if they lose in their districts.

Voters get two ballots and must write in the name of a party on their proportional representation ballot and the name of a candidate on their electoral district ballot.

The party plans to announce two more batches of candidates for the election before official campaigning begins on Oct. 10 for a total of at least 233 candidates, just over half the number of seats in the house.

"In total, I think (the number) will be more than 233, making it quite possible for us to aim for a change of government," said Masaru Wakasa, seeking reelection for the lower house, said after announcing the list Tuesday.

"I want us to all go in the same direction while each preparing to fight where we can," Koike later told reporters in Tokyo.

Candidates include Koike's close aide Wakasa and Goshi Hosono, a former environment minister who left the Democratic Party, as well as 26 participants in a political academy hosted by Wakasa.

But Koike herself is not on the list and appeared to rule out any prospect of an immediate return to national politics on Tuesday when she told reporters, "I'm 100 percent not running in the election."

Koike's establishment of the Party of Hope, whose official English name was confirmed by Wakasa's office on Tuesday, has fueled speculation that the former LDP lower house member may resign as Tokyo governor to make a comeback in national politics.

The list announced Tuesday is missing names for two of the capital's 25 single-seat districts, but Wakasa dismissed suggestions that Koike might later slide into either of those spots.

He also said Tuesday that the first candidate list includes 110 members from the main opposition Democratic Party, which has split.

Koichiro Gemba of the Democratic Party, whose name was not on the list, sat alongside Wakasa and Hosono during the announcement. He later told reporters the Democratic Party had "shifted too far to the left" to have a hope of taking power from the ruling coalition.

The party released Tuesday a list of conditions to which it has required its candidates to agree, including a pledge to support a controversial amendment to the Constitution and freezing a consumption tax increase planned for October 2019.

The upcoming election will likely be a three-way battle between the ruling coalition, the Party of Hope and a new pro-Constitution group launched Monday by Yukio Edano, former chief Cabinet secretary when the Democratic Party's predecessor was in power.

Edano's Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan formally registered with election authorities on Tuesday. It has been set up as a home for Democratic Party members unlikely to be accepted by Koike's party due to differing political beliefs on national security and an amendment to the pacifist Constitution.

Edano signaled Tuesday his party will not put up a challenge in districts where Democratic Party deserters will run with the Party of Hope.

"We don't plan to stand competing candidates in electoral districts where our friends who were in the same party as us on Sept. 28 are standing," he told reporters in Tokyo. Abe dissolved the lower house on Sept. 28, the same day the Democratic Party effectively disbanded.

Akira Nagatsuma, former welfare minister, told reporters that he, Edano and four other lower house lawmakers are the founding members of the new party.

In addition, former Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Hirotaka Akamatsu, former vice speaker of the lower house, are among those expected to join the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

Several Democratic Party lawmakers, including leader Seiji Maehara, plan to run as independents.

The Democratic Party's long-time primary backer, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation or Rengo, the nation's largest labor organization, said Tuesday that it plans to continue backing individual candidates it had already pledged to support in electoral districts, regardless of their affiliation.

Rengo head Rikio Kozu said the confederation "will not decide to fully back any party."

"The Party of Hope and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan have both just come into existence, and it's not clear how they might be able to share an awareness with us," Kozu told reporters.

Regarding candidates on proportional representation lists, Kozu indicated that each regional and industry branch of the confederation will be allowed to decide which party to back.