Oct 28, 2017 (Japan Today) - The fledgling opposition Party of Hope, which performed poorly in the recent general election despite initially high expectations for the party led by Tokyo Gov Yuriko Koike, decided Friday to choose the leader of its parliamentary operations by late November.
The party also decided to back member Shu Watanabe, a former senior vice defense minister currently serving his eighth term in the lower house, in the parliament-wide vote for prime minister set for Nov 1. Party members cited Watanabe's relatively long career in parliament.
However, the vote for Watanabe from the party holding only a fraction of Diet seats will be merely a formality as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is certain to be re-elected with his Liberal Democratic Party controlling a majority of both houses of parliament.
"I take seriously the fact that you have made these decisions, and I want to go forth in unity with you all," Koike told the party's lawmakers after a meeting in which they decided on their next steps following Sunday's election.
Koike, who became the governor in 2016 after serving as a Diet member for more than 20 years, turned down requests from some party members to run in the election so as to return to national politics and become a candidate for prime minister.
The party's parliamentary leader will be an aide to Koike, who will remain party leader outside the Diet.
A special Diet session is set to run for about a week from Nov 1 to take care of procedures following the Oct 22 election of the House of Representatives.
Koike's party had absorbed the conservative wing of the collapsing Democratic Party ahead of the campaign, but ended up gaining fewer seats than the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, which was formed to take on the liberal members of the Democratic Party who could not or would not join the Party of Hope.
At the Party of Hope lawmakers' meeting, former Democratic Party Secretary General Atsushi Oshima was chosen as both secretary general and policy chief and former Democratic Party member Hirofumi Ryu made chief of Diet affairs.
