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Japanese opposition parties ink accord to merge ahead of summer election campaign

Xinhua, February 26, 2016 Adjust font size:

Japan's main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) inked an accord to merge Friday with the new party eyeing an integrated challenge to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc in this summer's upper house election.

DPJ President Katsuya Okada and JIP leader Yorihisa Matsuno signed the agreement that will likely see the formal head of the new party -- it's official designation yet to be decided.

The new opposition party to be launched in March will see some 150 parliamentarians from both chambers of parliament join forces and gear up to take on Abe's coalition in the upper house, the election of which this summer, if won by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, will see Abe's grip on power increased and a national referendum held on controversial constitutional change.

The constitutional changes being tabled specifically regard amending a key clause in Japan's war-renouncing constitution that will further broaden the operational scope of Japan's defense forces.

Under the current Article 9 of the constitution, Japan is prohibited from maintaining ground, sea or air forces with war potential and is forbidden from using violence as means of settling international disputes.

While the new opposition party will be provisionally outgunned numerically in the 242-member upper house and the more powerful 475-member lower house, Matsuno has said the new party plans to oust the government.

LDP-linked scandals and gaffes have caused the support rate for the prime minister's cabinet to slump according to recent polls, with the public particularly exacerbated by a recent bribery scandal involving the nation's former economics minister, remarks against freedom of speech and press freedom made by Abe's communications minister and an extra marital affair by an LDP lawmaker who was campaigning for Diet members' paternity leave rights.

The opposition camp and the public also stand opposed to the enactment of forced security legislation at the end of last year, which is deemed unconstitutional by scholars and lawyers, and a threat to the nation's 70 years of pacifism since the end of WWII. Enditem