Reiwa Shinsengumi Under Fire for Diet Member “Rotation” Scheme

It’s hard to be taken seriously as an opposition party in Japan. It’s even harder when you give people reason to believe you’re a joke. That’s the issue facing the Reiwa Shinsengumi Party, which other political parties are criticizing for its plan to “rotate” one of its seats in Japan’s Diet.

The controversy comes after the resignation of Dr. Suidobashi (水道橋博士). Suidobashi (real name: Ono Masayoshi) won election in 2022 as part of Reiwa Shinsengumi’s “proportional representation” block, in which a party’s candidates can are allotted a seat in Japan’s national House of Councillors based on votes for the party itself.

Reiwa Shinsengumi is a relatively new political opposition party in Japan, formed by former actor Yamamoto Taro. Its platform advocates raising the minimum wage, canceling student debt, and eliminating Japan’s consumption tax. It holds 3 seats in the lower House of Representatives (1% of total seats) and 5 (2%) in the upper House of Councillors.

In November 2022, Suidobashi took leave from the Diet, citing his struggle with depression. Awareness and acceptance of mental health issues in Japan is low, and some criticized Suidobashi for “stealing” from the national coffers for drawing his normal salary during his leave. ( Doctors and mental health advocates have rallied around Suidobashi, using his struggle to educate the public about the realities of depression.)

Musical Diet chairs

This week, Suidobashi announced he would step down from his seat. Given that his seat is from the proportional block, that means Reiwa Shinsengumi gets to name a new member to serve out the remainder of Suidobashi’s six-year term.

However, party head Yamamoto Taro said that it wouldn’t assign a permanent member. Instead, it plans to “rotate” a different member of the party through the seat every year for the next five years. Parties stack-rank their proportional representative candidates and the members serve in that order depending on the number of seats the party wins. Yamamoto said that the party would rotate the members through in that order.

Both members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and other opposition parties have blasted the decision. The LDP’s Seko Hiroshige said the scheme “violates the spirit of the Constitution”. The Constitutional Democratic Party’s Okada Katsuya also criticized the policy as departing from the intention of the proportional representation system.

The thing is, it’s not clear that anyone can stop Reiwa Shinsengumi from doing this. For all the talk of violating the spirit of the Constitution, Yamamoto’s scheme doesn’t seem expressly illegal. The question is whether voters will punish Reiwa for this decision at the polls.

As we’ve discussed before, Japan’s opposition parties often struggle to gain a foothold even when the ruling LDP repeatedly shoots itself in the foot. The slow-motion crash of Prime Minister Kishida Fumio’s approval rating has done nothing to help the opposition. In fact, many polls show support for the LDP rising.

It’s hard to see how this will help reverse that trend

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Sources

水道橋博士さんは議員辞職…でも「在職」療養の道はなかったの？　病気なのに「給料泥棒」と批判まで. Tokyo Shimbun

れいわの議員交代方針 参議院の野党から疑問視する意見相次ぐ. NHK News

れいわ新選組「ローテ制」批判続々　「憲法に合わず」. Nikkei