Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has succeeded in wooing the Japan Innovation Party (JIP), the junior coalition partner of her Liberal Democratic Party, into joining her Cabinet by providing a minister.
A JIP member is expected to get a ministerial post sometime later this year, as Takaichi will likely retain all current ministers when she forms her second Cabinet next week. However, the impending addition of a JIP member to the Cabinet marks a new phase of closer ties and shared responsibility between the two parties.
The coalition’s decisive victory in Sunday’s Lower House election — in which the LDP and JIP won about three-quarters of the 465 seats in the chamber — appeared to have pushed the JIP to accept Takaichi’s request, after the party had declined it for months.
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