Many people are uneasy about a party with ties to religious organizations - in this case, Komeito is linked to the controversial Buddhist Soka Gakkai - being in government.

CNN: Taking Over

Come next April, the deep-pocketed Soka Gakkai group which owns them intends to merge all three Buddhist-affiliated parties that splintered from the former Komeito (Clean Government Party) in 1994.

ECONOMIST: Japan

After the war, the group transformed itself into a lay religious organisation, adopting the name Soka Gakkai (Value-Creation Society), and embracing the faith of the 700-year-old Nichiren Shoshu sect.

ECONOMIST: Japan

The Soka Gakkai was then little more than a Buddhist-equivalent of the Salvation Army.

ECONOMIST: Japan

Without the Soka Gakkai's support, the party is expected to take a drubbing in the forthcoming upper-house election.

ECONOMIST: The revenge of Japan��s old brigade

He should really have been more respectful of New Komeito's main sponsor, the Soka Gakkai, whose founder, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, was imprisoned during the war because of his opposition to state-sponsored Shintoism.

ECONOMIST: Japan: Sorry Mori | The