As Osaka Expo kicks off, Nippon Ishin continues to hold its breath

Japan Times

14-04-2025

The 2025 Osaka Expo — officially known as the Osaka, Kansai, Japan Expo — began Sunday and no one is more relieved, or more concerned about what happens next, than the leaders of Nippon Ishin no Kai.
The Osaka and Kansai-centered national opposition party, whose co-leaders are Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura and Lower House member Seiji Maehara, who represents a district in the city of Kyoto, must figure out quickly how to turn the long-troubled event, plagued by cost overruns, labor shortages and a host of concerns about visitor safety, into a financial and political success.
For Nippon Ishin, the hope is that the expo will not only serve as a boost to the local economy but also act as a national catalyst for economic growth, even helping Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba play the role of international statesman.
'The United States, South Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, and the Palestinian territories are all in a state of confusion, so I hope the prime minister will make use of the expo as a diplomatic stage,' Nippon Ishin Secretary-General Ryohei Iwatani told Ishiba during Monday's Lower House budget meeting.
The party's hopes for the expo are tempered by fears that they'll take the political blame if the event fails. Media polls show little public interest in the event, making it quite difficult to attract the 28.2 million visitors needed — about 150,000 people a day for six months — to ensure it becomes a financial success.
In a Mainichi Shimbun poll carried out over the weekend, 87% of respondents said they would not go, or probably won't go, to the expo. In addition, Nippon Ishin appears to lack the public popularity that might help persuade more people to visit.
Separate polls show that while the approval rates for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party are not that high, they are still well above those for Nippon Ishin. A weekend poll by Kyodo News showed that the LDP had a support rate of 25.8% while that for Nippon Ishin was just 4.9%.
A Yomiuri Shimbun poll between Friday and Sunday, meanwhile, showed a 28% support rate for the LDP but just a 2% score for the opposition party.
Nippon Ishin therefore faces a tough political choice. If the expo, which concludes on Oct. 13, ends up in the red, the party will be forced to go, cap in hand, to the central government and request funds to settle at least a portion of the final bill.
A third of the expo's funding comes from the central government while the rest is split between the Osaka prefectural and city governments and the corporate community.
But if the event turns out to be a failure, the question of who pays what will likely be subject to fierce debate once the curtains come down.
The worry for Nippon Ishin is that its supporters, having long been promised that the expo would give at least a ¥2.7 trillion ($19 billion) boost to the overall economy, could rebel against the party at the polls, particularly those in its Osaka base if taxpayers there are told they must bear some of the burden.
However, being forced to rely on central government funding to help out if the event loses money could make it more difficult for Nippon Ishin to confront the LDP on policy issues in the run-up to the July Upper House election. That would give other opposition parties — especially the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Democratic Party for the People — an opening to attract anti-LDP votes by criticizing Nippon Ishin as being too close to the ruling party.
In November 2018, Nippon Ishin celebrated when Osaka was selected to host the 2025 World Expo. As the event begins, however, the problems surrounding it and the lack of public enthusiasm have led the party to wonder if what it once saw as a political boon is turning out to be a major bane that could put a big, even fatal, dent into its credibility.