Japan considers establishing a second capital to support Tokyo

The Japanese government, led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), has officially submitted a draft bill to the Japanese Parliament to establish a ‘second capital’ that would assist in carrying out the functions of the capital Tokyo and promote decentralisation. The LDP and its coalition partner, the Osaka-based Japan Innovation Party (JIP), submitted the bill on Wednesday with the target of passing it before the current parliamentary session ends on 17 July. The bill would serve as a driver for JIP’s efforts to reorganise the city of Osaka in western Japan into a metropolis akin to Tokyo by establishing a special zone. Legislation to set up a dual capital system is part of the coalition agreement struck last October between the LDP, led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, and JIP. JIP’s support enabled Takaichi to secure enough votes in Parliament to become Japan’s first female prime minister. JIP’s proposed Osaka metropolis plan, aimed at streamlining the city’s administration, was previously rejected by the LDP and narrowly defeated in two city-level referendums in 2015 and 2020. In a bid to increase the chances of a new referendum passing, JIP initially planned to expand the scope of the vote to the entire Osaka Prefecture, with the bill originally containing an additional clause permitting a prefecture-level referendum. However, JIP decided to concede to the LDP and dropped the additional clause after some LDP members expressed concern that a prefecture-level referendum would be inconsistent with the principle of autonomy guaranteed by the constitution. Amid Takaichi’s popularity, the LDP-JIP coalition secured a landslide victory in the February 2026 lower house election, winning three-quarters of the seats, which allows it to override upper house rejections of a bill. Furthermore, the two parties also submitted another bill to push for a reduction in the number of seats in the lower house. The bill plans to abolish 45 seats allocated through proportional representation, out of a total of 465 lower house seats, if no other agreement on seat reduction is reached a year after the bill is enacted. The plan to cut seats by 10 per cent of the total lower house seats is also part of the coalition agreement between the LDP and JIP.