TOKYO - Japan's ultraconservative Sanseito party is taking a more cooperative stance toward the ruling coalition, helping to pass bills, with the small opposition force apparently hoping to boost its policy credentials before local elections next spring.
With its "Japanese first" mantra that tapped into anxieties over the country's growing foreign population, Sanseito came to greater prominence in the 2025 House of Councillors election with a strong showing owing partly to voters disaffected with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, then led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's predecessor, Shigeru Ishiba.
Strong alignment with the LDP over a conservative agenda, however, did not translate into substantive cooperation after the LDP's emphatic election win under Takaichi in the House of Representatives election in February.
That was despite the LDP and its junior coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, lacking a majority in the upper house, and Sanseito and another small party, the Democratic Party for the People, controlling enough seats to help the coalition clear the majority threshold.
But the tide appears to have changed in Sanseito's relations with the coalition in recent weeks, with the party moving to back a bill to revise the country's controversial retrial system after the DPP, seen as a possible coalition partner, declined to support it.
On a lawmaker-drafted bill to outlaw desecration of the Japanese flag, too, Sanseito joined the ruling coalition and the DPP in submitting the legislation to parliament, after the LDP accepted Sanseito's request to extend punishments to individuals waving Japanese flags with a cross mark on them at stump speeches.
The change marks a significant shift from earlier in the year, when the LDP appeared to be snubbing Sanseito by not involving it to join a cross-party national council to discuss tax-cutting measures.
Sanseito later opposed the 2026 fiscal budget, with leader Sohei Kamiya saying it and the LDP's "policy overlap is decreasing."
"The governing parties' attitude is what has changed," a top Sanseito official said of the recent shift in relations. "Perhaps they have come to realize that Sanseito will cooperate when called on," the official added, in a hint further deals could be possible.
Part of the shift in calculations may be due to unified local elections next spring, seen as a test for Sanseito to strengthen its regional foundations. The party has said it wants to field 600 candidates in the polls.
