On the day of a snap winter election – one that would ultimately end in a landslide victory for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) – Takaichi Sanae stood alongside two men. They were not members of her own party, but rather the two leaders of Nippon Ishin no Kai: Osaka Governor Yoshimura Hirofumi and Fujita Fumitake, who leads his party’s Diet delegation. Yet Yoshimura’s stump speech hardly sounded like one delivered by the leader of a different party. In fact, it barely sounded as though Takaichi herself belonged to the LDP.
“We may not have the numbers. But we will never back down. We will not leave Takaichi-san standing alone,” Yoshimura declared. “We will not let Japan stand alone. We are determined to move Japan forward. That is the resolve with which we stand here today.”
Before they joined the ruling coalition, Nippon Ishin’s initial favorite in the October 2025 LDP leadership race was Koizumi Shinjiro, now serving as minister of defense. They shared a commitment to challenging vested interests and embraced what are often described as “neoliberal” approaches to achieving that goal. By providing the LDP with enough votes to secure a parliamentary majority – which it lacked in both houses at the time – Nippon Ishin hoped to advance a reform agenda that would have been impossible to pursue as a mid-sized opposition party alone.
