Japan's main opposition party to disband after 8 months

Japan's main opposition party, the Centrist Reform Alliance, said on Wednesday that it will disband after eight months, deepening disarray among opponents of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party.

“Once we settle outstanding payments, we will dissolve the party,” Junya Ogawa, the Centrist Reform Alliance chief, told a press conference.

The Centrist party was formed in January in an attempt to merge two major opposition groups, Komeito and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, and build a more unified challenge to the LDP.

But the new party suffered a major defeat in February's general election, winning 49 seats in the 465-seat lower house and losing more than 100 incumbents who were seeking re-election. The LDP won 316 seats after adding more than 100.

Some Centrist members are expected to return to their old parties or form new ones. Ogawa said members are expected to form a lower-house caucus to continue pushing for an alternative to the LDP.

Komeito, a pacifist party backed by a lay Buddhist organisation, ended its 26-year coalition with the LDP in October last year. It said at the time that the LDP had refused to strengthen rules on political donations after a fundraising scandal.