The cash-strapped Centrist Reform Alliance, Japan’s main opposition party, has raised over 100 million yen about one month after launching a crowdfunding campaign to broaden its support ahead of key local elections next year.
The party, formed by lawmakers from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Komeito party, has struggled financially since its crushing defeat in the February House of Representatives election reduced its seats from nearly 170 to just under 50, slashing its public subsidies.
Seeking to improve its fortunes, the party launched the crowdfunding campaign on May 15, with a minimum donation of 1,000 yen per person. It surpassed its initial target of 10 million yen within hours and hit 100 million yen on Monday.
Writing on social media after the latest milestone figure was reached, CRA leader Junya Ogawa said his party sees it as representing “the total weight of people’s hopes” for change in politics. “Whether we can live up to those expectations will be determined from here on,” he added.
The money will be spent on holding dialogue events across the country, formulating policies relevant to voters’ lives and maintaining ties with local communities, according to the campaign website.
The crowdfunding initiative comes ahead of unified local elections next spring, in which the CRA is expected to support candidates fielded independently by the CDPJ and Komeito, after the two decided not to run under a unified CRA banner.
Formed only weeks before the Feb. 8 general election, the CRA will receive 2.3 billion yen in party grants that can be used for political activities this year.
When combined with the CDPJ and Komeito, whose lawmakers still sit separately in the House of Councillors, the three parties are entitled to 6.9 billion yen, down from 10.5 billion yen.
As evidence of the CRA’s strained finances, Ogawa paid from his own pocket to travel to Spain in April and speak at the Global Progressive Mobilization summit of left-leaning political figures, which was attended by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
© KYODO
