By Kantaro Komiya and Tim Kelly
TOKYO (Reuters) -Formed in 2010 to shake up Japan's political establishment and loosen Tokyo's administrative stranglehold, the Japan Innovation Party, known as Ishin, will now help the ruling Liberal Democratic Party extend seven decades of dominance.
The opposition group from industrial Osaka, Japan's No. 2 metropolis, on Monday agreed to join a coalition with the LDP, all but guaranteeing its new hardline conservative leader Sanae Takaichi will become the country's first female prime minister when parliament picks a new premier on Tuesday.
"Politics should be about taking risks when necessary to open up new paths," Ishin leader and Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura said on Monday during a television interview, as his party finalised its partnership deal with Takaichi, albeit without sending any minister to her cabinet.
It was, however, a "very difficult decision" because most parties that entered a coalition with the LDP "disappeared," he added.
Led by Yoshimura from its western power base and co-leader Fumitake Fujita in parliament, Ishin shares Takaichi's hardline stance on national security and immigration. In 2023, a then-leader even described the party as being "the second LDP".
Like Takaichi, Yoshimura and Fujita want to rewrite Japan's pacifist constitution, expand a defence buildup aimed at deterring neighbouring China and impose stricter immigration controls. They have proposed a cap on foreign resident numbers and restrictions on property purchases by overseas investors.
The more moderate Komeito party quit its 26-year-old coalition with the LDP after Takaichi became leader this month.
The LDP and Ishin also share an electoral problem: each has lost or barely gained seats in lower and upper house elections held in the past year, as other parties, including the far-right Sanseito, have surged.
DIFFERENCES
To win voters back to a party rooted in Japan's rural communities, Takaichi has promised higher spending, which she says will revive the economy and support households squeezed by inflation.
Small government advocate Ishin differs. Fujita, a former gym instructor turned politician, and Yoshimura, who rose to prominence directing Osaka's COVID-19 response, are championing lower spending and tax cuts.
In return for its support Takaichi agreed to back a raft of Ishin policies, including a one-tenth cut in parliamentary seats, social security reform, free high school education and a two-year pause to the consumption tax on food.
The Osaka governor also wants to designate his city as a backup capital that could administer Japan if a major disaster crippled Tokyo.
On some social policy, they disagree. Yoshimura has voiced support for legal changes to let women retain their surnames after marriage, a revision that social conservatives such as Takaichi see as a threat to family unity, although Ishin has conceded to a more stopgap solution.
At a press briefing on Thursday, Yoshimura said he would invite Takaichi, who grew up in nearby Nara, to a parade in Osaka next month to celebrate the Hanshin Tigers baseball team's Central League victory. If she accepts, it will, thanks to Ishin, be as prime minister.
Like Takaichi, Yoshimura calls himself a Tigers fan, though he says, "not as fanatical."
(Reporting by Kantaro Komiya and Tim Kelly; additional reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama; editing by Saad Sayeed)
