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TOKYO, Jan. 17-- Two opposition parties which 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). Were the potential merger to have come 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 today and said that a relationship of trust with the Democratic Party had collapsed. Launched by Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike just prior to the Oct. 22 lower house election, the Party of Hope absorbed a number of conservatives from the Democratic Party to run on its ticket, while many liberals from the then Democratic Party joined the CDPJ ahead of the election. The two parties have been at odds, however, over contentious security legislation that was forced into law in 2016 despite mass public and political opposition, with the Democratic Party maintaining that part of the legislation is unconstitutional. | 
