Will the lawmaker Ozawa and his group member leave DPJ?

Given the title of this blog 'Japan Now', I have to describe recent politic scene in Japan.

As many who live in Japan, not only Japanese citizens but also foreigners or visitors in Japan now are aware of, the bills to increase comsumption tax ratio from current 5% to 8% in 2014 and by 10% in 2015, has passed the lower  house.

The tricky part of the vote by lawmakers to pass this bill was,  the legistration was passed by the alignment with current ruling party DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan) and former ruling party LDP (Liberty and Decomcatic Party), although there came 54 against-vote from current DPL.

This 54 lawmakers of the lower house was led by Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, who has been the most influential member for those years.

Ichiro Ozawa has fiercely confronted literally every aspects of political issues against former Prime Minister Naoto Kan and current Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.
(So, many people wonder why there are in a same party.)

If all of those 54 members leave the DPJ, then DPJ will loose its ruling party position, and no party will be a ruling party without making coalition with othe parties.

Now, roughly 70% of Japanese people are against the tax-increase law, not many Japanese support the movement Ichiro Ozawa and his group member made for during couple of days.

Mr, Ichiro Ozawa is conceived as old-fashioned politicians, like money-oriented, the leadershio that requires his followers turn-right if your boss say to do so without any questions, and conceived that he acts too politically and has no consitency the way he say and behave.

So even though he and his followers voted against bills,  they have not gotten enough support from Japanese constituents as they expected.

But since they voted against the bill, it is quite difficult to stay in the same party.

It is said that lawmaker Ichiro Ozawa will announce his decision on whether he will leave DPJ tomorrow or not, with his followers.

In any case, it is obvious that DPJ needs to allign with LDP more closely than ever, which loose the point why DPJ won the majority of the seat in the election of year 2009, beating LDP which were continuously ruling party of Japan for more than 50 years.

Now, there is no chance for Ichiro Ozawa to stay in the party, so how many lawmakers of DPJ will follow Ichiro Ozawa and leave DPJ is the point that gets attention now.

Ichiro Ozawa















Update : July 7th, 2012
Eventually, 50 lawmakers of the Lower House followed Mr. Ozawa and left DPJ.
They developed a new party and its name is the party of 'Your Life is Our Priority'.
This is the slogan being held when Ozawa lead the DPJ to win and get the majority seats of the lower house.

According to every surveys that are conducted recently show about 70% of the Japanese citizens are aginst the bill to increase the consumption ratio, 80% to 85% Japanese citizens are not supporting the movement of Ozawa group.

The political circumstances are very severe to Ozawa's new party at the moment. But he has a track record to overcome such severe situations by departing his party and creating a new party where Ozawa can take enough initiatives to his fellows.
It is conceived by many Japanese that Ozawa did the same old method that he repeatedly made to revive in the politic scene in Japan. That old method is one of the reasons that his new party is not getting supports from Japanese citizens.