Japan's main opposition party will vote on Saturday for a new leader to replace scandal-tainted Ichiro Ozawa, in a move that could boost its fading prospects of winning an election just months away. The Democratic Party had a clear poll lead until a funding scandal erupted and threatened its chances of ousting Prime Minister Taro Aso's conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has ruled Japan for almost all of the past five decades.
Analysts said the Democrats' platform - the core of which is a pledge to break bureaucrats' grip on policy to reduce wasteful spending and end the cossetting of vested interests - was unlikely to change much, no matter who leads the party. The Democrats have also vowed to strengthen the social safety net and revive domestic demand in the midst of a deep recession.
For possible successors, analysts have focused on former party leader Katsuya Okada, 55, a soft-spoken former trade official with a "Mr Clean" image, and Yukio Hatoyama, 62, another ex-party chief who was one of Ozawa's deputies. "I would like to think about it ... The important thing is what I should do to realise a change in government," Okada told reporters.
Democratic lawmakers from parliament's two houses will take part in the vote after Ozawa resigned on Monday. A survey by the Kyodo news agency, the first since Ozawa's resignation, showed voters favoured Okada to replace him, but there was little impact on Aso's support rating, which was at 28 percent, slightly lower than an earlier poll.
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