Fresh from Sunday's landslide Lower House election win, the Democratic Party of Japan officially kicked off talks Wednesday with its two small allies to form a coalition government, but the day's talks pointed to a rough road ahead.
One ally, the Social Democratic Party, flatly opposes any Self-Defense Forces deployment abroad, while the other ally, Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party), wants to scotch the whole postal system privatization process started by the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling bloc that the DPJ unseated.
Masayuki Naoshima, chairman of the DPJ Policy Research Council, and his SDP and Kokumin Shinto counterparts met at the Diet, where the DPJ handed the two a draft of a coalition plan based on their common campaign platforms compiled before the election.