Party Founder Leaves

A populist leader who led anti-Abe campaign in elections suddenly stepped down. President of Party of Hope and Governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, announced her resignation last week, insisting on her desire to focus on handling local politics in Tokyo. When she took the seat less than two months ago, Koike hoped to be the national leader by defeating incumbent Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the election. Realizing the idea as unrealistic, Koike escaped from her responsibility of rebuilding the party up for the cause.

As president of a local party, Tokyoite First, Koike achieved a sweeping victory in the election of Tokyo Metropolitan Congress in July, damaging local organization of Liberal Democratic Party. Encouraged by local victory, Koike embarked on organizing her colleagues to establish national party. When she ran for Tokyo Governor last summer, LDP raised another candidate contending against Koike. After the gubernatorial election, Koike took a stance of anti-LDP and Anti-Abe administration. Final goal for Koike was to defeat Abe administration and take the seat of Prime Minister.

A miscalculation was that Abe dissolved House of Representatives too early for Koike to establish new national party for the election. Although Party of Hope, led by some colleagues in its early stage, tried to collect young and fresh candidates in all over Japan, it was apparently in short to defeat LDP. Then, Koike accepted an offer from then President of Democratic Party, Seiji Maehara, to raise all DP candidates from Party of Hope. After accepting the offer, Koike made a fatal mistake of referring to exclusion of leftist lawmakers in DP, which caused fractural campaign of the opposite parties.

Koike told that she would keep on supporting the party in a certain way. But, she had not been a supporter, but the founding leader of the party. It is likely that she was disappointed to impossibility of the party to defeat Abe administration and frustrated with the situation of the party hijacked by former DP lawmakers. As seen in the resignation of Mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto, a populist leader can suddenly lose fundamental interest in politics, when he or she loses hope, leaving the enthusiastic supporters behind.

Lawmaker in House of Representatives, Yuichiro Tamaki, succeeded Koike as president of the party. While he chose lawmakers close to Koike for new board members, it is likely that the party can be suffering from another separation. Liberal lawmakers indicate leaving the party, not satisfied with the selection of board members. What former DP lawmakers imported was endless antagonism among the colleagues.