The FCCJ welcomed Seiji Maehara, co-leader of the Innovation Party (Nippon Ishin), on June 19, 2025, ahead of the Upper House elections held on July 20. This year, 124 seats plus one vacancy (total 125) out of the 248-seat chamber were contested—just about half the house.
Nippon Ishin managed a modest gain: picking up 7 seats overall and holding steady in Osaka and Kyoto—but still failed to break free from its Kansai echo chamber. In classic “hop-parliament-and-merge” Maehara fashion, he switched alliances yet again last year—though you’d need a flowchart to keep track.
Maehara, who is running again in Kyoto’s 2nd district, is a veteran with 11 terms in the Diet.
Who is Seiji Maehara?
Seiji Maehara was born on April 30, 1962, in Kyoto. He studied law and specialized in international politics at Kyoto University. First elected in 1993 in his home district, he quickly became a prominent figure in the Diet and is now serving his 11th term.
Key Political Roles
Maehara held several important positions during his time in government. His most prestigious was Minister of Foreign Affairs (2010–2011), a role that ended in resignation after a scandal involving illegal political donations. Before that, he served as Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (2009–2010) under Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. At the time, the Democratic Party of Japan was in power and Maehara was one of its most visible figures.
Maehara also has deep institutional experience. He’s served as:
- Special Chairman of the Committee on Okinawa and Northern Territories
- Chairman of the Judge Prosecution Oversight Committee
- Lead director on the House Steering and Budget Committees
He’s weighed in on national defense, disaster response, and election reform—though like many veteran lawmakers, his fingerprints are on almost everything and nothing at once. Perhaps that’s because in the past he had some alleged connections to shadowy figures missing a finger (or two). It makes one careful about their fingerprints.
Party Roulette and Rebranding
Maehara has led more parties than some people change mobile plans. He was President of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) from 2005 to 2006—until a “fake email” scandal cost him the job. He resurfaced as leader of the Democratic Party (DP) in 2017, only to be ousted along with four colleagues after a brief internal rebellion.
In 2023, he launched a boutique reformist group—Free Education for All (FEFA)—pushing for zero-cost schooling across all levels. The party didn’t last a full calendar year before folding into Nippon Ishin in 2024. Since then, he’s shared the leadership reins of the Innovation Party with Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura, keeping one foot in Kansai and the other in the Diet.
With 28 candidates running in the July 2025 Upper House election, the Innovation Party positioned itself as a reformist force. The results, however, suggest a party still talking to itself in an echo chamber of deregulation, education vouchers, and AI-driven healthcare.
A Platform Focused on Reform
Maehara’s 2025 campaign echoed familiar themes: a constitutional revision package centered on three planks:
- Free education
- Governance reform
- A new Constitutional Court
He paints a vision of “a fair society where everyone can succeed”—provided they study hard, eat their free school lunches, and pass an increasingly rigorous university exam. With household spending on education rising, he argues that public education should be cost-free from preschool through university.
Maehara’s higher education policy leans meritocratic: make access easier, make graduation harder. Universities should be more research-oriented, more competitive, and—if possible—more like Stanford, minus the tuition fees.
The Innovation Economy—Or At Least, a Sketch of It
His economic plan calls for a “dynamic growth economy”, but the buzzwords occasionally outpace the substance. Proposals include:
- Legalizing paid carpooling (including rideshares)
- Opening agriculture to joint-stock companies
- Using spectrum auctions to manage radio frequencies more efficiently
Foreign policy remains a Maehara signature: pro-American, with a hardline stance toward China and North Korea. His approach to healthcare focuses on digitization, AI, and telemedicine, with a target of saving 4 trillion yen annually. It’s an ambitious number, one that seems to have been rounded upward in a policy meeting without much objection.
Still in the Ring—But No Knockout
Despite a long record in public office and a robust CV, Maehara faces serious headwinds. His party’s loss of momentum in the 2024 Lower House election—falling from 44 to 38 seats—was followed by underwhelming polling ahead of the 2025 Upper House vote.
As of early July, Nippon Ishin was polling at just 4%, behind the Democratic Party for the People (6%) and the Constitutional Democratic Party (8%). For a party branding itself as the innovation engine of Japanese politics, the numbers were anything but electric.
Though Nippon Ishin did pick up a few seats in the final count, it wasn’t the kind of breakthrough needed to vault Maehara into national leadership—or to shake the party’s image as an Osaka-centric policy lab. And with the ruling coalition suffering historic losses, the moment seemed ripe. But the Innovation Party’s inability to seize that moment may define this electoral cycle more than any single candidate or platform.
Conclusion: Veteran, Survivor, Operator
Seiji Maehara remains one of Japan’s most enduring and adaptive politicians. He’s outlasted parties, scandals, prime ministers, and shifting ideologies. He’s seen Japan’s political center crumble and tried—more than once—to build something in its place.
But as the 2025 Upper House results suggest, the party he now co-leads may need more than free education and AI healthcare to capture the national imagination. And Maehara, ever the survivor, may find himself once again searching for a platform with stronger legs—and a new party banner to wave.
This post was edited by Jake Adelstein