Taking the Sum of Japan's Opposition Parties

Two of Japan's largest opposition parties are merging, but countering Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's legislative majority will prove to be an uphill battle. The new Democratic Party, announced March 27, holds around 20 percent of the seats in Japan's lower house and 25 percent of the upper house, where support from leaning independents could bump its influence to 28 percent. But even though patchwork coalitions like the new Democratic Party have driven the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from power on two previous occasions, the merger will not guarantee the opposition's success in upper house elections set for July. Moreover, if the Democratic Party does gain power in the upper house, it will have to contend with an LDP supermajority in the lower house, limiting its ability to block the ruling coalition's policies. At most, the new opposition party can only hope to keep the ruling party from sweeping the July elections.