October 21, 2025
TOKYO – Liberal Democratic Party President Sanae Takaichi and Japan Innovation Party leader Hirofumi Yoshimura agreed to form a coalition government on Monday, after the LDP agreed to requests from the JIP on such policies as reducing the number of seats in the Diet.
With the agreement, JIP lawmakers are expected to join LDP lawmakers in voting for Takaichi in the prime ministerial election on Tuesday during the extraordinary Diet session to be convened on the same day. This could crown her as Japan’s first-ever female prime minister.
“I would like to thank Yoshimura, [JIP co-leader Fumitake] Fujita and other JIP members for engaging in policy talks for a long time, as the parties share the same views on the nation. Starting today, [the LDP and the JIP] will make the Japanese economy strong,” Takaichi said at the start of a meeting between the leaders before they signed the coalition agreement.
“We, the JIP, are a small party, but we share the same desire to make Japan a stronger and better country,” Yoshimura said.
In the two parties’ coalition, the JIP will provide “out-of-cabinet cooperation,” as the junior coalition partner does not intend for its lawmakers to join the cabinet. To maintain close contact between the administration and the JIP, the party’s Diet affairs chief, Takashi Endo, is expected to be named as a special advisor to the prime minister.
In addition to a consensus on trimming the number of seats in the Diet, the two sides agreed to pass legislation during the ordinary Diet session next year to create a “second capital” that will serve as the nation’s capital should Tokyo be affected by a disaster. They also agreed to work toward social security reform, consumption tax cuts and a ban on corporate and organizational donations to political parties.
As for the Diet seats, the LDP and the JIP agreed to achieve a 10% reduction in the House of Representatives in the upcoming Diet session. The lower house currently has 465 seats.
On the consumption tax, the parties agreed to set up a deliberative body toward cutting the tax on food to zero for two years. The parties will also set up another deliberative body on banning political donations by corporations and organizations that will seek to produce a conclusion before the end of Takaichi’s tenure as LDP president in September 2027.
The JIP held an executive meeting in Osaka City on Sunday and decided to leave coalition talks in the hands of Yoshimura and Fujita. According to people at the meeting, there were no objections to forming a coalition with the LDP.
The JIP held a general meeting of party lawmakers earlier on Monday and agreed to vote for Takaichi as part of a coalition with the LDP.
In the lower house, whose choice for prime minister takes precedence over that of the upper house, the LDP holds 196 seats and the JIP has 35. Their combined 231 votes are two short of a majority.
If Takaichi fails to earn at least 233 votes in the first round of voting, the election will go to a runoff. With opposition parties such as the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Democratic Party for the People having failed to produce a joint candidate, Takaichi is expected to earn the most votes in the first round. The LDP is lobbying lawmakers, including the members of a group of nonaffiliated lawmakers, to vote for Takaichi so that the LDP president can secure enough votes in the first round.
Takaichi mulling top secretaries
Takaichi is leaning toward appointing Yuji Iida, a former vice economy, trade and industry minister, as executive secretary to the prime minister for political affairs — the senior most secretarial position — if she is named prime minister Tuesday, according to government sources.
As deputy chief cabinet secretaries for political affairs, Takaichi plans to appoint lower house member Masanao Ozaki and upper house member Kei Sato, who both handled policy planning and other matters for her during the LDP presidential election.
Iida led decarbonization efforts as director general of the Economic and Industrial Policy Bureau under former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Iida also played a leading role in the running of the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo. He has been serving as a special advisor to the Cabinet since leaving his vice minister post in July.