Bill to shrink Diet set aside as LDP pushes imperial house reform | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis
Bill to shrink Diet set aside as LDP pushes imperial house reform
July 8, 2026 at 14:23 JST
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Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, center right, holds talks with Hirofumi Yoshimura, center left, leader of Nippon Ishin, on July 7. (Takeshi Iwashita)
The ruling coalition agreed to shelve a bill on reducing the number of Lower House seats in an attempt to ensure passage of Imperial House Law revisions during the current Diet session
The agreement was reached at a meeting on July 7 between Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, president of the Liberal Democratic Party, and Hirofumi Yoshimura, leader of junior coalition partner Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party)
The party leaders also reaffirmed a policy of seeking passage of a bill on the “secondary capital” initiative during the current Diet session, which ends on July 17, government and coalition
At a meeting on July 8, Hiroshi Kajiyama, chairman of the LDP’s Diet Affairs Committee, conveyed the ruling bloc’s policy on the two bills to Kazuhiko Shigetoku, his counterpart from the Centrist Reform Alliance (Chudo), the main opposition party in the Lower House.
Shigetoku demanded that a Lower House Budget Committee session be convened in which Takaichi would attend.
He later met with Diet affairs chiefs from other opposition parties to discuss how to respond.
The coalition’s move could open the way for the opposition to resume deliberations in the Lower House, where proceedings have been deadlocked
Nippon Ishin has strongly advocated the seat-reduction bill and the sub-capital bill, both written into the coalition agreement between the two parties
The ruling parties forced the start of deliberations on the two bills, aiming for passage during the current Diet session
However, opposition parties pushed back, particularly against the seat-reduction bill, and refused to begin debate on a bill to revise the Imperial House Law to ensure an adequate number of imperial family members
The seat-reduction bill mandates that 45 proportional representation seats, or 10 percent of the lower chamber’s 465 seats, would be automatically eliminated if a council of ruling and opposition parties on the electoral system fails to reach a conclusion within one year
The Takaichi-Yoshimura meeting, also attended by the secretaries-general, Diet affairs chiefs and senior Upper House officials from the two parties, lasted about 10 minutes
According to a person who was present, Takaichi sought Yoshimura’s understanding for a plan to push the seat-reduction bill, one of Nippon Ishin’s signature policies, to the next extraordinary Diet session
“It is an agonizing decision for me as well, but it is what we should do,” said Yoshimura, who also serves as Osaka governor
After the meeting, Takaichi told reporters, “We exchanged views on how to proceed (in the Diet), including the handling of lawmaker-initiated bills.”
Both Takaichi and Yoshimura refrained from providing details of the discussions
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