Leader of Japan’s Opposition Resigns

Posted by Justin Bresolin

Ichiro Ozawa, the main Democratic Party opposition leader in Japan's parliament, has announced his resignation on Monday, May 11th. Ozawa's reasoning comes from a desire to prevent reputational damage to his party from a recent finance scandal involving one of his aides, thereby potentially jeopardizing the opposition's chances of unseating the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party.

Accused of taking illegal donations (i.e. a bribe, most likely) from a construction company, Ozawa's aide was arrested in early March, the opposition party's lead in public opinion polls has dropped noticeably as a result. Ozawa has done his best to combat the issue, accusing prosecutors of being politically motivated by the LDP, but the reputational damage seems to have been done.

When taken with several other recent major political scandals, including those of Prime Minister Aso himself, along with ex-finance minister Shouichi Nakagawa, who was forced to resign after a public mishap during a speech conference in Rome, Japan's political situation has been considerably muddled, with both sides dropping rapidly in public favor. With both major players failing in their pursuits, Japan's "political paralysis" is doing the country no favors in responding to the global financial crisis, including their own long-term economic decline.

This recent scandal has only reinforced much of the Japanese peoples' concern over the rampant corruption observed within all sides of their political system, and the situation as a whole exemplifies the power of public opinion in most democratic systems, in this case the unfortunate power to send a government grinding to a halt. Whether or not Japan will be able to recover from this and consolidate its policymaking remains to be seen.