What was once the largest opposition party in Japan is in shambles. The Centrist Reformist Alliance (CRA), which was born out of the last-minute merger of two center-left parties — the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) and Komeito — had a dismal performance in the lower house snap elections in February, decreasing their pre-election seat count from 167 to a mere 49. Although the merger had initially only concerned lower house members, with upper house members assumed to follow the same process, both the CDP and Komeito remain intact in the upper house, spooked by the unremarkable election results. The schedule for them to formally unite under the CRA banner remains undetermined. 

The post-election discord among the center-left bloc of Japanese politics reveals the nature of the electoral gamble that Noda Yoshihiko and Saito Tetsuo were seeking to play — to meet Takaichi’s surprise snap election with a tactical consolidation of Japan’s largest consortium of organized labor and the Soka Gakkai, Japan’s largest religious organization — a move that alienated independent voters for its opportunism and lack of policy alignment, particularly on national security and energy policy. The optics of two old men opposing Japan’s first female prime minister likely contributed to the backfire. 

The stated rationale for the CRA was that it would stand for “Putting People’s Livelihoods First” amid the emergence of polarizing political views on the right and left — in other words, it would seek the majoritarian position that others had abandoned. However, in public, the leaders of the CRA did not hide their greater concern over right-wing extremism compared to its polar opposite. Before the CRA was founded, Noda had warned that the Takaichi administration “leans right,” and Saito also raised concerns about the political environment in which a rightward shift was taking place.

The rejection of the CRA — while it still garnered 10 million proportional ballots, second only to the LDP — should not be seen as a rightward shift away from a still-existing political middle. Rather, the political middle itself appears to have shifted to the right. In essence, the CRA positioned itself as a home for what used to be moderate voters. 

The CRA’s platform was mostly in accordance with the status quo policies of the Abe Shinzo administration — which turned out to be the longest-serving government in Japanese history, and of which Komeito was a part. The CRA did not reject the post-2015 security reforms, but called for maintaining their scope within acceptable parameters. They rejected excessive fiscal stimulus and reliance on government debt. They also pushed back against the anti-foreigner sentiment gaining steam, which had been the centrist position during the 2010s, when Abe set a goal of welcoming foreign workers and tourists in exceptional numbers.

Takaichi’s electoral victory, accompanied by her still-high approval ratings and the little opposition to the policies she is pushing through, are all indications that the old political center has moved — the center once championed by Abe Shinzo, who governed in his second term as an economy-focused, fiscally “responsible,” pro-foreigner, and cautious reformer on security policy. Instead, Takaichi’s policies have been breaking what were once considered taboos in national security, correcting past administrations’ excessive fiscal austerity — by reversing Abe’s consumption tax hikes — and increasing government involvement in monitoring the activities of foreigners and preventing the abuse of the system by them. 

The legislative activities in the Diet foretell an emerging center-right bloc that could achieve what was once thought unthinkable: constitutional revision. On June 5, the ruling party — the Liberal Democratic Party — along with Nippon Ishin no Kai, the Democratic Party for the People, and Sanseito jointly submitted a revised version of the National Referendum Act, which aims to improve voting conditions in line with the current Public Offices Election Law. The four parties together hold 160 seats in the upper house of the Diet, six short of the two-thirds threshold needed to initiate a referendum — the ruling party already meets that threshold in the lower house. Constitutional revision is no longer the insurmountable wall it once seemed. 

Whether the conservative dream of amending the constitution will go smoothly depends on how the center-left responds, which appears to be the only institutional force in the Diet capable of exercising a veto. However, in the end, they may simply shrug and acquiesce to the new political center. While the CDP opposed the bill to restructure Japan’s intelligence apparatus in the upper house, the CRA voted affirmatively, allowing it to pass. Considering that the Special Secrets Act of 2013 caused a stir in the Diet over privacy concerns, the fact that the law establishing a new national intelligence bureau — which the CDP opposed on similar grounds — passed with the CRA‘s support shows where the emerging consensus lies: a greater willingness to trust the government on national security. 

In the end, the “centrist” label may be losing traction in the current political environment. Across the West, center-left leaders are becoming increasingly unpopular, being targets of extremists from both ends, while even center-right leaders have to fend off attacks from the far right. In the case of Japan, the picture is far less messy than in its Western counterparts. There is no legislative gridlock, and public trust in government is among the highest in an otherwise volatile political environment across the globe. However, the center-left in Japan — which had championed moderate, incremental change — has fallen out of favor with a public that wants more decisive action from its leaders. A new political center is taking shape in Japan, one that is pushing the old center-left to the margins of the political spectrum.