TOKYO, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Two opposition parties who had taken steps towards forging a parliamentary alliance saw a breakdown in negotiations Wednesday with both sides failing to overcome differences in policy and stances regarding security and constitutional amendment.
On Monday, Motohisa Furukawa, secretary general of the Party of Hope and Teruhiko Mashiko, who serves the same position in the Democratic Party, vowed to create an alliance that could challenge the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
Once the potential merger came to fruition, the alliance would have created the largest opposition group in both chambers of Japan's parliament, overtaking the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ).
However, rank-and-file lawmakers on both sides could not reconcile their differences on key issues, and the Democratic Party leadership reportedly failed to gain support from within the party for the alliance in a meeting held earlier in the day.
The Party of Hope, meanwhile, said that it will put an end to negotiations as of Wednesday and said that a relationship of trust with the Democratic Party had collapsed. Enditem
