Komeito, Constitutional Democratic Party agree to form new reformed-oriented centrist party

January 16 , 2026

Saito (left of center) and CDP President Noda (to his right) met to establish a new political party on Jan. 15

On January 15, Komeito Chief Representative Tetsuo Saito and Yoshihiko Noda, President of the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) of Japan, agreed to establish a new parliamentary party committed to centrist policies and political reform. The CDP is the largest political opposition with 148 seats (including independents) in the House of Representatives; Komeito has 24 seats.

The agreement aims to unite politically centrist and reform-orientated legislators in the Diet as a democratic bulwark against an increasingly hawkish and exclusionist Liberal Democratic Party led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who is expected to dissolve the Lower House on January 19. The LDP currently leads a minority coalition government in which the Japan Innovation Party acts as a non-Cabinet partner.

Under the agreement, Lower House members from both parties will join the new party should they endorse its founding principles, which include Komeito’s five key policy objectives. Komeito will no longer field candidates in the single-seat electoral districts but will be assigned preferential slots on the new party’s proportional representation list. Moreover, the two parties will retain their respective organizations for lawmakers in the House of Councillors and local assemblies.

The gist of Komeito’s five policy pillars are as follows: to establish a more sustainable social security system; to promote a more inclusive society; to achieve stable economic growth; to develop a foreign and national security framework to build peace, promote human security and facilitate regional and global cooperation; to enact a cohesive series of reforms to enhance political transparency, restore public confidence and redress issues plaguing the existing electoral system.

In a press conference following his meeting with President Noda, Saito said the CDP and Komeito would be calling on moderates in the LDP to join the new party. Earlier in the day, Saito told his party’s Central Secretariat that the two centrist parties, in confronting the manifold challenges posed within and without Japan, must join forces in order to safeguard the nation’s quality of life and its commitment to peace and nuclear abolition.