Opposition party heavyweights Yukio Edano, Jun Azumi and Ichiro Ozawa — veterans who once served as party leaders and took on top government posts — are among candidates facing neck-and-neck races in their electoral districts in Sunday’s Lower House election.
The intense competition shows just how much of an uphill battle the election is for Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA), a new opposition party formed just before campaigning kicked off — even for the well-known politicians among its ranks who have enjoyed solid decadeslong support in their respective home turfs.
In the Saitama No. 5 district, Edano, a former leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), is in a close race against the Liberal Democratic Party’s rookie candidate, Yutaka Ihara, a former Saitama city assembly member, a poll conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun shows. An Asahi Shimbun poll shows Edano having a slight lead in the race.
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