OSAKA (Kyodo) -- Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura, who is nationally recognized, was elected Sunday as the top leader of Japan's second-largest opposition party, with a pledge to rebuild the party's political footing following a loss of seats in the October general election.

Yoshimura, 49, takes the helm of the Japan Innovation Party at a time when Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's government needs opposition support for its policy goals, after the coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito party lost its majority in the House of Representatives, the powerful lower house of parliament.

After winning nearly 80 percent of votes cast in the party's election, Yoshimura, who was its No. 2 leader, expressed his readiness to coordinate with other opposition parties ahead of the House of Councillors election set for next summer.

"We will not aim to be the country's No. 1 opposition party," Yoshimura told a press conference at the party's extraordinary convention in Osaka, adding that "breaking the ruling coalition's majority" in the upper house "should be the goal."

"That will bring us closer to fulfilling our pledges," he added.

The party, which has a stronghold in the Kansai region surrounding Osaka, "does not intend to field candidates in (constituencies) all over the country," he said.

The JIP saw its lower house seats decline to 38 from 43 in the Oct. 27 general election, while the largest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, and the smaller Democratic Party for the People, increased their seats.

Yoshimura said he wants to appoint veteran lawmaker Seiji Maehara, who was foreign minister when the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan was in power, as the party's No. 2.

Yoshimura won 8,547 out of 10,809 votes in total to beat three contenders, who are all Diet members, including upper house member Shigefumi Matsuzawa, 66, a former governor of Kanagawa Prefecture just south of Tokyo.

In the JIP leadership race, voting rights were given to 846 special party members, including lawmakers and local assembly members, and 25,025 general party members who had paid membership fees over the previous two years.

He replaces Nobuyuki Baba, who became head of the JIP in 2022 but decided not to run to take responsibility for the party's election performance.

Yoshimura was elected as Osaka Prefecture's governor in 2019 after serving as mayor of Osaka city, its capital, since 2015. Prior to that, he was a lower house member for about a year.

After the JIP helped secure the 2025 World Exposition for Osaka, the opposition party won a series of local elections in 2023. But it has recently lost momentum amid growing criticism over the ballooning costs of hosting the upcoming event.

Without majority control of the 465-member lower house, Ishiba's LDP and Komeito must secure support from opposition parties to pass budgets and bills, necessitating cross-party discussions to find common ground.