BOWING TO public and peer pressure, Ichiro Ozawa yesterday announced he would resign as president of Japan’s main opposition party after failing to quell criticism over the arrest of a top aide in a fundraising scandal.
Mr Ozawa’s departure gives his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) a chance to regain momentum in its campaign to oust Japan’s long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in a looming general election.
At a press conference, Mr Ozawa, a former leading LDP member who has been a dominant force in the opposition since the early 1990s, said he was sacrificing himself for “party unity”.
His move came two months after prosecutors arrested his aide for knowingly accepting illegal donations from a scandal-hit construction company.
Mr Ozawa had vowed to fight on despite the scandal, but had faced increasingly open dissent among powerful colleagues within the DPJ and a poll published by the Yomiuri newspaper on Monday that suggested 71 per cent of voters disapproved of his refusal to resign.
Pressure on Mr Ozawa had grown amid a revival in the political fortunes of Japanese prime minister and LDP leader Taro Aso that has been fuelled by signs of progress on economic stimulus action and a stock market recovery.
Senior DPJ figures had warned that Mr Ozawa’s continued leadership could make victory impossible in the general election, expected by September at the latest.
The leading candidate to succeed him is thought to be Katsuya Okada, a DPJ vice-president and former party leader. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009)