Mataichi OKed as Chief of Japanese Opposition SDP

February 25, 2018

Tokyo- The Social Democratic Party on Sunday endorsed Secretary-General Seiji Mataichi as the new leader of the small Japanese opposition party.

The approval was given at a party convention held in Tokyo.

Mataichi, whose term of office runs until the SDP's next convention two years later, is tasked to shore up the party's staggering presence.

Attention will likely be paid to his stance on the SDP's possible cooperation with other opposition parties in next year's election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament, and his response to calls within the party for its integration with the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

The CDPJ was established mainly by liberal members of the Democratic Party, also an opposition party, shortly before the Oct. 22, 2017, general election for the House of Representatives, the all-important lower chamber.

Mataichi won a Diet seat for the first time in the 2001 Upper House election. He is now serving his third term.

He ran for the SDP leadership in January after Tadatomo Yoshida expressed his intention of not seeking reelection as party head following his loss of an Upper House seat in the 2016 election. Mataichi was elected SDP chief without a contest late last month. Jiji Press