By Fumihiko Takeda

1. VOTES CAST FOR THE OPPOSITION BECOME WASTED VOTES AGAIN AFTER THE ELECTION

In an election, votes cast for unsuccessful candidates are called wasted votes because they are not reflected in political decisions. Yet almost the same thing happens to votes cast for opposition legislators who are successfully elected, although this problem has not been sufficiently recognized.

Opposition legislators possess the rights to speak, ask questions, introduce bills, and vote. However, when the governing parties hold a stable majority and party discipline is enforced, the result of a vote is almost predetermined before deliberations even begin. The opposition can speak, but it cannot decide. Consequently, although opposition votes formally exist within parliament, they become, in practical terms, wasted votes in the formation of the will of the state.

During the 213th session of the National Diet in 2024, 61 of the 62 bills submitted by the Cabinet were enacted, an enactment rate of 98.4 percent. This was not accidental. Under a parliamentary system, the parliamentary majority forms the Cabinet, and the same majority then passes the bills submitted by that Cabinet. There is a considerable gap between the legal form, in which parliament independently examines government-sponsored legislation, and the political reality, in which the governing parties enact the legislation proposed by their own Cabinet.

The 51st general election of the House of Representatives, held on February 8, 2026, made this problem even clearer. The successful candidate receiving the smallest number of votes in a single-member constituency obtained 49,415 votes, while in the closest constituency the difference between the successful candidate and the runner-up was only 163 votes. Nevertheless, the successful candidate received one seat and the full voting power attached to it, while the almost equal number of votes cast

2. THE PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM ABSORBS THE SEPARATION OF POWERS INTO THE GOVERNING PARTIES

Article 65 of the Constitution of Japan provides that executive power shall be vested in the Cabinet. Article 73 provides that the Cabinet shall prepare the national budget and submit it to the Diet. Although the budget is legally approved by the Diet, it is the Cabinet that prepares the original proposal determining how much money is allocated to each policy, and the governing majority then approves it. Under the parliamentary system, therefore, the governing parties effectively control both the preparation and approval of the budget.

The same applies to legislative power. Constitutionally, legislative power belongs to the Diet. In practice, however, the Cabinet submits the principal bills, the governing parties control the parliamentary schedule and committees, and party discipline ensures their enactment. Although the legislature and the executive are institutionally separate, the same political entity—the governing parties—controls both.

The judiciary is also not completely separated from politics. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is appointed by the Emperor following designation by the Cabinet, while the other Supreme Court justices are appointed by the Cabinet.

The Commissioner General of the National Police Agency is appointed by the National Public Safety Commission, but the appointment requires the approval of the Prime Minister. The Chairperson of the National Public Safety Commission is a minister of state, while the other members are appointed by the Prime Minister with the consent of both Houses of the Diet. The Prosecutor-General,

3. THE PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM ABSORBS THE SEPARATION OF POWERS INTO THE GOVERNING PARTIES

Article 65 of the Constitution of Japan provides that executive power belongs to the Cabinet. Article 73 provides that the Cabinet prepares the national budget and submits it to the Diet. Although the Diet legally approves the budget, it is the Cabinet that prepares the original proposal determining how much money will be allocated to each policy, and the governing majority then approves it. Under a parliamentary system, therefore, the governing parties effectively control both the preparation and the approval of the budget.

The same is true of legislative power. Constitutionally, legislative power belongs to the Diet. In practice, however, the Cabinet submits the principal bills, the governing parties control the parliamentary timetable and committees, and party discipline ensures their enactment. Although the legislature and the executive are institutionally separate, the same political entity—the governing parties—controls both.

The judiciary is also not entirely separated from politics. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is appointed by the Emperor following nomination by the Cabinet, while the other Supreme Court justices are appointed by the Cabinet. The Commissioner General of the National Police Agency is appointed by the National Public Safety Commission, but the appointment requires the approval of the Prime Minister. The chairperson of the National Public Safety Commission is a Minister of State, and the other commissioners are appointed by the Prime Minister with the consent of both houses of the Diet. The Prosecutor-General, Deputy Prosecutor-General, and superintend3ing prosecutors are also appointed by the Cabinet. When the governing parties control a parliamentary majority, their influence may therefore extend to senior appointments in the police, public prosecution service, and judiciary, even though these institutions are required to remain politically neutral.

The actual distribution of power under a parliamentary system cannot therefore be explained solely by the three horizontal divisions of legislative, executive, and judicial power. We must also recognize the governing parties as a political organization extending vertically through all three branches.

Although the three powers are formally separated, in practice they may become interconnected through the governing parties.

4. OPPORTUNITIES FOR POLITICAL CRIME ARE CONCENTRATED IN THE GOVERNING PARTIES TOGETHER WITH POWER

There are no official statistics classifying every political crime according to political party, and it is therefore impossible to state precisely what percentage of political crimes is committed by members of governing parties. The institutional causal relationship, however, is clear.

Those who can allocate public funds have opportunities to direct benefits toward particular interests. Those who possess licensing and regulatory authority have opportunities to grant special favors. Those who can influence senior appointments within investigative agencies have opportunities to exert pressure on investigations. Those who control official documents and administrative information have opportunities to conceal wrongdoing. Those who can enact legislation have opportunities to create systems that serve their own interests.

It is therefore natural that more opportunities for crimes, corruption, concealment, and collusion involving the use of political power exist among governing parties, which possess power, than among opposition parties, which do not.

This is not an assertion that politicians in governing parties are morally worse than politicians in opposition parties. It is an institutional problem: even the same human beings become more susceptible to corruption when they are given authority and opportunity.

Nevertheless, the present system allows the governing parties to direct the administration, prepare the budget, enact legislation, and retain influence over the investigative agencies responsible for investigating wrongdoing by those same governing parties. This is similar to allowing a suspect to participate in selecting the senior officials of the agency investigating that suspect.

Merely hoping that virtuous people will govern cannot be called an institutional safeguard.

What is required is not the goodwill of those in power, but a system under which those in power cannot completely protect themselves.

5. THE HOLDER OF THE RIGHTS OF THE OPPOSITION—THE CONFERENCE OF ALL OPPOSITION PARTIES

If the rights of the opposition were granted only to the largest opposition party, the votes cast for all other opposition parties would once again be excluded. On the other hand, if each opposition party exercised these powers separately, no unified decisions could be made concerning appointments to state institutions or policies for monitoring the government. I therefore propose the permanent establishment in parliament of a Conference of All Opposition Parties, composed of every opposition legislator.

For the purposes of this system, opposition parties are defined as all political parties and their legislators other than the parties that form the Cabinet, provide Cabinet ministers, or continually participate in the government under a governing coalition agreement. Whether a party previously formed part of the government is irrelevant. Once a party has left the government and no longer participates in the current Cabinet, it becomes an opposition party. Independent legislators may participate if they do not belong to a parliamentary group supporting the government and formally register as members of the opposition.

Within the Conference of All Opposition Parties, every legislator shall have one vote, regardless of the size of the political party to which that legislator belongs. All decisions shall be made by a majority of the members present. Candidates for senior positions in the police, public prosecution service, and other institutions shall be selected by the same majority-vote procedure.

No additional requirement, such as the consent of two or more political parties, shall be imposed. Nor shall parties constituting a minority within the Conference of All Opposition Parties receive a veto, reserved positions, or weighted votes. To grant such privileges would create a new form of minority privilege within the opposition while criticizing preferential treatment for minorities elsewhere.

The Conference of All Opposition Parties is not an organization intended to impose ideological unity upon different opposition parties. It is an institution that determines, through democratic majority rule, a single collective decision whenever the opposition must present one official position to the state in exercising the rights of the opposition. A party defeated in a vote within the Conference shall remain free to publish its dissenting opinion, but the decision of the Conference shall constitute the official position of the entire opposition in its relations with state institutions.

When a change of government occurs, the former governing parties shall enter the Conference of All Opposition Parties, while the former opposition parties that join the new government shall leave it. The rights of the opposition are therefore not permanent privileges granted to particular political parties. They constitute an institutional position whose holders change according to election results and the composition of the government.

6. THE RIGHTS OF THE OPPOSITION AS A NEW FORM OF SEPARATION OF POWERS

I propose establishing “the rights of the opposition” within parliamentary democracy as a constitutional power distinct from legislative, executive, and judicial power.

The rights of the opposition do not mean giving the opposition half of the government. They do not mean creating two cabinets or allowing the opposition constantly to veto the policies of the governing parties. The governing parties must retain the authority to implement the policies entrusted to them by the people. In return, powers that cannot function properly when entrusted to the governing parties themselves—such as monitoring, investigation, appointments, and the convocation of parliament—must be institutionally separated from the government.

First: Senior Police Appointments Shall Belong to the Conference of All Opposition Parties

The members of the National Public Safety Commission, the Commissioner General of the National Police Agency, and other senior police officials specified by law shall be selected and appointed by the Conference of All Opposition Parties.

Opposition politicians, however, must not be permitted to direct investigations in individual cases. Individual investigations shall be conducted independently by the police in accordance with the law and the evidence. The opposition shall receive the power to appoint senior officials, not the power to direct investigations.

If a change of government occurs and today’s opposition becomes tomorrow’s government, the authority over senior police appointments shall pass to the new Conference of All Opposition Parties. Because this transfer of authority is always possible, the present opposition will also have an incentive to create a politically neutral system under which it may itself become the subject of investigation in the future.

Second: Senior Public Prosecution Appointments Shall Belong to the Conference of All Opposition Parties

The independence of the public prosecution service, which investigates political crimes and initiates prosecutions, is even more important than the independence of the police. The Conference of All Opposition Parties shall select candidates for Prosecutor-General, Deputy Prosecutor-General, superintending prosecutors, and other senior prosecutorial positions specified by law. The Cabinet shall formally appoint those candidates and shall not be permitted to reject them unless they lack the legally required qualifications or another clear legal impediment exists.

Here again, the Conference of All Opposition Parties shall not be permitted to order the prosecution or non-prosecution of any individual case. Decisions in individual cases must be separated from politics. What must be separated from the governing parties is control over senior appointments within the organization responsible for making those decisions.

Third: The Conference of All Opposition Parties Shall Have the Power to Summon Witnesses

If the summoning of witnesses for parliamentary investigations requires the consent of the governing majority, the more damaging an allegation is to the governing parties, the more difficult it becomes to investigate. This is because those who are to be monitored ultimately decide who may be summoned as a witness.

The Conference of All Opposition Parties shall therefore be permitted, by majority vote, to require a committee of either house or a joint investigative body to summon a witness. Such a requirement shall be legally binding. Failure to appear without legitimate reason, false testimony, and other violations shall be subject to penalties equivalent to those provided under the existing Act on Witnesses’ Oath, Testimony, etc. before the Diet.

To prevent the summoning of witnesses from becoming an instrument of partisan conflict, the matter under investigation must concern national government and be based on specific facts. In cases involving violations of human rights or manifest abuse of power, prompt review by a constitutional court or another court shall be available. This is not intended to restore a veto to the governing parties, but to ensure that the rights of the opposition also remain subject to the rule of law.

Fourth: The Opposition Shall Have Decision-Making Power over the Convocation, Duration, and Extension of Parliamentary Sessions

If the government and the governing parties can close parliament, delay its convocation, or restrict the time available for deliberation whenever an inconvenient issue arises, parliament cannot perform its function of monitoring the administration. It is unreasonable for those being monitored to decide when and for how long they will be subjected to scrutiny.

A request by the Conference of All Opposition Parties, adopted by majority vote, for the convocation of an extraordinary parliamentary session must be honored within a short period prescribed by law.

The Conference shall also have the independent authority to extend an ordinary or extraordinary parliamentary session for a specified period. To prevent sessions from continuing indefinitely, the Constitution or parliamentary law shall establish an annual maximum number of additional sitting days.

Fifth: Supreme Court Justices Shall Be Appointed Alternately by the Government and the Opposition

Under a system in which only the Cabinet appoints Supreme Court justices, the influence of the same political force may gradually accumulate within the Court when one government remains in power for a long period.

To prevent this, whenever a vacancy arises, the Cabinet and the Conference of All Opposition Parties shall alternately select one candidate. A system shall also be established under which neither side permanently monopolizes the power to nominate the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

A justice does not become the representative of the side that appointed that justice. After appointment, every justice shall be bound only by the Constitution and the law and shall perform judicial duties independently.

The purpose of alternating appointments is not to politicize the judiciary. It is to prevent a single political party from monopolizing every opportunity to appoint Supreme Court justices.

Sixth: On Important Issues, the Government’s Proposal and the Opposition’s Proposal Shall Be Presented to the People on Equal Terms

On matters involving the Constitution, the fundamental policies of the state, enormous long-term financial burdens, and other important national issues, not only the government’s proposal but also the proposal adopted by the Conference of All Opposition Parties shall be deliberated and published under the same conditions.

Government ministries and agencies shall be required to cooperate in examining the opposition’s proposal from legal, financial, and administrative perspectives.

The final decision shall not be entrusted to the opposition. Nor shall it be entrusted to the governing parties.

The government’s proposal and the opposition’s proposal shall be submitted to an electronic national referendum with equal amounts of supporting information and under equal publicity conditions, and the sovereign people shall make the decision.

Because the parliamentary electoral system greatly magnifies some expressions of public will while excluding others, establishing national referendums on fundamental matters of state does not negate parliament. It supplements the public will that has been lost through parliamentary elections.

7. OPPOSITION POLICY SUPPORT DIVISIONS—THE INTELLECTUAL FOUNDATION FOR NOT ENTRUSTING THE ENTIRE ADMINISTRATION TO THE GOVERNING PARTIES

Even if powers are granted to the opposition, those powers will remain merely nominal unless the opposition also possesses information, personnel, and the capacity for policy analysis.

The government and the governing parties have access to tens of thousands of civil servants working in government ministries and agencies, as well as statistics, diplomatic and defense information, budgetary materials, and legislative expertise. By contrast, opposition parties must examine government proposals and prepare alternatives using only their limited numbers of parliamentary secretaries and party employees.

It is contrary to reality to regard the government and the opposition as engaging in an equal parliamentary debate while leaving this overwhelming disparity in intellectual resources untouched.

I therefore propose establishing permanent “Opposition Policy Support Divisions” within the ministries of finance, foreign affairs, defense, internal affairs, justice, health and labor, economy and industry, and other major administrative organizations. These divisions shall serve as policy-development support organizations for all opposition parties.

An Opposition Policy Support Division shall not assist only a particular opposition party or the largest opposition party. It shall serve the Conference of All Opposition Parties as a whole.

In accordance with research and policy-development requests adopted by majority vote of the Conference of All Opposition Parties, the divisions shall perform the following functions:

1. Provide government-held documents, data, and statistics.
2. Analyze the policy effects, costs, legal problems, and feasibility of government proposals.
3. Assist in preparing bills submitted by the opposition, proposed budget amendments, and alternative policies.
4. Prepare medium- and long-term fiscal projections and estimate policy costs.
5. Lawfully provide specialized information, including confidential information concerning diplomacy, national security, and other fields.
6. Organize the materials required for parliamentary questions, witness examinations, and parliamentary investigations.

7.     The employees of the Opposition Policy Support Divisions shall be national civil servants. They shall serve as professionals, not as political party members or political activists.

8.     Their personnel administration and budgets shall be made independent of the ministers responsible for the ministries in which they are located. Each division shall operate under an independent director appointed by the Conference of All Opposition Parties.

9.     The employees shall be subject to strict duties of confidentiality. They shall be prohibited from using confidential information for political party activities or election campaigns.

10.  When an administrative organization refuses to provide information, it shall be required to state its reasons in writing. An independent institution or a court shall promptly examine whether the refusal is justified.

11.  Information may not be withheld merely because its disclosure would be inconvenient for the government or because it concerns the process of policy formation.

12.  The Opposition Policy Support Divisions shall have no authority to issue administrative orders. Licensing, budget execution, diplomatic negotiations, command of the Self-Defense Forces, and other executive powers shall remain with the Cabinet and the government ministries and agencies.

13.  An Opposition Policy Support Division is not a second government. It is an intellectual foundation that enables the opposition to examine government proposals, prepare workable alternatives, and create conditions under which the people can make a genuine choice.

14.  This system will replace the present arrangement, under which the entire administration is entrusted to the governing parties, with a substantive division of roles: the governing parties shall implement the administration, while the opposition shall examine it and prepare alternative policies.

15.  When a change of government occurs, this system will also reduce the danger that political parties will suddenly assume responsibility for the government without having prepared policies while they were in opposition.

8. THIS IS NOT PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT FOR A MINORITY

It may be argued that because the opposition constitutes a minority, granting it powers of its own amounts to preferential treatment for a minority. This objection, however, confuses two different kinds of power.

If, in making policy decisions, the vote of a person belonging to a minority were given greater weight than the vote of a person belonging to the majority, that would constitute preferential treatment for a minority. I am not proposing such a system.

Every citizen must possess equal political rights, and a person’s political will must not be given additional weight merely because that person belongs to a minority.

For precisely this reason, even within the Conference of All Opposition Parties, minority parties shall not receive a veto, reserved positions, or weighted votes. Decisions shall be made by majority vote, with each legislator possessing one vote.

The rights of the opposition, by contrast, do not increase the value of minority votes in policy decisions. They separate particular state functions—senior appointments in the police and public prosecution service, the summoning of witnesses, the duration of parliamentary sessions, and appointments to the Supreme Court—that would lose their monitoring function if monopolized by the governing parties themselves.

Making the Board of Audit independent of the Cabinet does not constitute preferential treatment for the employees of the Board of Audit. Similarly, granting the opposition the powers necessary to monitor the government does not make the policy votes of opposition supporters more valuable than those of the majority.

Furthermore, opposition status is not a fixed status. It changes according to election results and the composition of the government. Today’s governing parties may become tomorrow’s opposition, and today’s opposition parties may become tomorrow’s government.

This is fundamentally different from granting permanent privileges to a particular class, ethnic group, religion, or political party.

the political will entrusted by a portion of the people to opposition parties from disappearing after an election, while simultaneously eliminating the contradiction inherent in requiring state power to monitor itself.

9. HOW CAN ABUSE OF THE RIGHTS OF THE OPPOSITION BE PREVENTED?

Just as the power of the governing parties can be abused, the rights of the opposition can also be abused. The rights of the opposition must therefore be designed not as unlimited rights, but as constitutional powers whose purposes and scope are clearly defined.

First, the rights of the opposition shall be limited to monitoring, senior appointments within investigative agencies, parliamentary investigations, the opening of parliament, participation in judicial appointments, policy-development support, and other specifically designated functions. Ordinary budget execution, diplomatic negotiations, administrative decisions, military command, and other executive functions shall remain with the Cabinet.

Second, political intervention in individual police and public prosecution cases shall be prohibited. If the opposition uses its appointment powers to order investigations that benefit its own parties, the abuse of power by the governing parties will merely have been replaced by abuse of power by the opposition.

Third, the proceedings, votes, positions taken by members, and personnel-selection processes of the Conference of All Opposition Parties shall, in principle, be made public, except where personal information or secrets concerning investigations or national security are involved.

Fourth, if an exercise of the rights of the opposition exceeds its constitutional scope, the governing parties, members of parliament, or persons whose rights have been violated shall be permitted to bring an action before a constitutional court, which shall conduct a prompt judicial review.

No institutional system can completely eliminate the abuse of power. What is necessary is to prevent a single political force from possessing every form of power and to subject each form of power to the scrutiny of other powers and of the people.

10. INTERNATIONAL PRECEDENTS AND THE ORIGINALITY OF THIS PROPOSAL

The idea of granting the opposition certain constitutional rights is not entirely without precedent in the world.

Article 114 of the Constitution of Portugal recognizes the “right of democratic opposition” and guarantees parliamentary parties that do not participate in the government the right to receive regular and direct information from the government concerning major matters of public interest.

Some countries also have systems under which the leader of the opposition participates in appointments to state institutions. In Guyana, the appointment of the Commissioner of Police and certain other officials requires meaningful consultation with the leader of the opposition. In Seychelles, the President and the leader of the opposition each appoint an equal number of members to the Constitutional Appointments Authority. In Argentina, the head of the institution responsible for auditing public accounts is appointed upon the proposal of the largest opposition party.

The United Kingdom has opposition days on which the opposition determines the parliamentary agenda. Germany and other countries recognize the rights of parliamentary minorities to demand deliberations and investigations.

In comparative constitutional scholarship, David Fontana discussed “Government in Opposition” in 2009, proposing that electoral losers should also receive substantive governing authority. Sujit Choudhry examined the opposition’s monitoring and agenda-setting rights as a new form of separation of powers in his 2020 work, “Opposition Rights in Parliamentary Democracies.”

Most existing systems, however, remain fragmented and limited to such matters as access to information, consultation, the nomination of some members of public bodies, or a limited number of parliamentary agenda days.

The originality of the present proposal lies in establishing the Conference of All Opposition Parties as the unified holder of the rights of the opposition and integrating the following elements into a single constitutional principle: senior police and public prosecution appointments, the summoning of witnesses, the convocation and duration of parliamentary sessions, alternating appointments of Supreme Court justices, national referendums on important issues, and Opposition Policy Support Divisions within government ministries and agencies.

The justification for this system is not that opposition parties deserve protection because they are unfortunate or disadvantaged. It is that the votes cast for opposition parties must continue to be reflected in the structure of state power after an election, and that those who possess power must not be permitted to monitor themselves.

CONCLUSION: VICTORY IN AN ELECTION DOES NOT CONFER OWNERSHIP OF THE ENTIRE POWER OF THE STATE

Parliamentary democracy developed as a system for entrusting government to the winner of an election. However, entrusting a political party with the government is not the same as entrusting it with almost the entire power of the state.

The governing parties control the budget and the administration, prepare and enact the principal legislation, and may also influence senior appointments within the police and public prosecution service and appointments to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the opposition can do little more than criticize the government and lose parliamentary votes.

Under this structure, votes cast for the opposition effectively become wasted votes after the election, while wrongdoing by the governing parties is investigated by state institutions that may themselves be subject to the influence of those same governing parties.

The traditional separation of powers alone cannot prevent the concentration of power in an age of political parties. Under a parliamentary system in which the same governing parties control both the legislature and the executive, power must also be separated between the government and the opposition.

The rights of the opposition do not make the opposition equivalent to the governing parties. Nor do they reject majority rule. The majority shall possess the authority to implement its policies, while the Conference of All Opposition Parties shall possess the independent powers necessary to monitor the exercise of that authority.

Opposition Policy Support Divisions within the principal government ministries and agencies will enable the opposition to become not merely an opponent of government proposals, but a proponent of alternative policies founded upon information and professional expertise.

On fundamental matters of state, the final decision shall be made neither by the governing parties nor by the opposition, but by the people.

A political party that wins an election has the right to govern. It does not have the right to own the state.

Legislative, executive, and judicial power must restrain one another. In addition, the governing parties responsible for administering the state and the opposition responsible for monitoring them must restrain one another as constitutional holders of power.

The institutional system that establishes this principle is “the rights of the opposition.”

Fumihiko Takeda is the founder and Representative of the Lincoln Club, an independent political and policy research organization that he established in Japan on November 19, 1993. The Lincoln Club is his own organization and is not affiliated with, or a branch of, any organization in the United States.

In 1974, he founded the Cooperative Center, an information service company that conducted research and analysis for Japanese government agencies and major newspapers. In 1977, he established the Institute for Ultimate Democracy and has since devoted his career to the study of democracy, constitutional reform, electoral systems, and institutional design.

From 2006 to 2014, he served as a lecturer at the Graduate School of Law, Keio University. He is the author of numerous books and articles on democratic governance and political reform, including works on direct democracy, constitutional issues, and election systems. His policy proposals have been discussed in major Japanese publications and public policy forums.

MAIN REFERENCES

1. The Constitution of Japan, Articles 41, 50, 51, 53, 62, 65, 73, 77, and 79.
2. House of Councillors, “Overview of the 213th Session of the National Diet,” 2024.
3. National Diet Library, “Basic Materials Concerning the National Diet and the Cabinet, with Particular Emphasis on the Bicameral System and Political Parties.”
4. The Police Act; the Public Prosecutors Office Act; and the Act on Witnesses’ Oath, Testimony, etc. before the Diet.
5. Official materials published by prefectural election administration commissions concerning the 51st General Election of Members of the House of Representatives, held on February 8, 2026.
6. Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, Article 114.
7. International IDEA, Opposition and