With Osaka voters having said ¡°no¡± for the second time to a merger referendum, Osaka Ishin no Kai (One Osaka) and its national party Nippon Ishin no Kai must find a new fundamental purpose or risk extinction.
The Nov. 1 referendum capped a five-year effort by Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura and Osaka Ishin leader and Osaka Mayor Ichiro Matsui to turn the city¡¯s 24 wards into four semiautonomous wards. Yet despite local polls showing Matsui, Yoshimura and Osaka Ishin itself remain popular, and despite the fact that the anti-merger faction won by only 17,000 votes out of over 1.37 million cast, the party and its movement are in trouble.
What happened, then, and what happens next?
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