The centenarian Japanese Communist Party (JCP) has long led left-wing calls for peace-based diplomacy and been a prominent critic of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party over its slush fund scandal. But more left-leaning voters appear to prefer the 5-year-old Reiwa Shinsengumi.
The younger party came into the spotlight during campaigning for the Oct. 27 general election after Xue Jian, the consul general of the Chinese Consulate in Osaka Prefecture, posted a video of a speech by Reiwa Shinsengumi leader Taro Yamamoto on social media platform X.
It’s unclear what influence Xue’s X account, which has some 83,000 followers, might have had on the final result. But the small opposition party picked up nine seats in the election, expanding its Lower House presence threefold — and giving it one seat more than the JCP, which finished with eight, down from the 10 it held previously.