Ozawa shows his disloyalty to Kan

No class at all from Jabba the Hut. Japanese politics is full of old childish arrogant men out to line their pockets and nothing else. If you watch the Parliamentary debates what strikes me is the childish jeering and personal attacks on each other, nothing to do with debating policies. Using this to launch a takeover of the party is disguisting. It`s the ideal chance to show people that in times of crisis we can all get together as adults and try to sort out where to go from here - Ozawa chose to self promote, sums him up in a nutshell.

Despite this, he still dreams of being the leader of Japan and his disloyalty is clear for all to see because his political career is about self-interest and self-promotion.

Yeah, clear for all to see, but he'll probably end up PM because people are stupid.

Self interested megalomaniac. Ozawa. Get gone and be still.

I wonder if Japanese realize how shocking and reckless their government appears. At a time of a national disaster I would expect politicians to come together (even briefly) to forge a plan to help the tsunami victims. I saw LDP bigwigs last night on TV criticizing Kan, it is unbelievable that they would do so at this time.

Ozawa has proven time and time again that he is loyal to only one person. That being the guy with the ugly mug staring back at him every morning in the mirror. He reprsents everything that is wrong with Japanese politics.

This is the first piece from JT where the author seems to have really done his homework...Well written and very informative.

This is the first piece from JT where the author seems to have really done his homework...Well written and very informative.

Agreed. My jaw was dropping when I read this, surely it wasn't a translate from Kyodo...Aah it is written by a Journalist working for White and Leejay out of Philadelphia. I doubt a piece that says what people actually think like this one does would ever be published in the Japanese press.

DPJ bigwig Ichiro Ozawa

When is this guy going to prison? That is the story i want to read about in regards to this DPJ big(censored word).

move along folks nothing new to see here. the only person or party ozawa is loyal to is ozawa. he doesn't care about the japanese people at all.

Ozawa is an opportunistic, grandstanding politician in every negative sense of the word one can imagine. It's partly upon his urging that Kan has been having a devil of a time trying to get the opposition parties to set aside their political ambitions in favor of working on a comprehensive reconstruction plan, including the raising and allocation of monies.

On another note, that there hasn't been an angry backlash from the electorate in response to the opposition parties' near unanimous refusal to work with Kan in this dire hour is astounding. I just can't believe people aren't pissed about the blatant political opportunism that's going on in Tokyo right now.

Kan, on the other hand, would get my vote in a heartbeat (if I could vote, that is) if there were a snap election tomorrow. He's honest, pragmatic, and working hard to stay above the wild pack of jackals that make up the Upper and Lower Houses.

Ozawa shows only loyalty to himself. This should be pretty damn obvious to anyone living here more than 5 minutes. That he'd exploit this tragedy for himself, shouldn't really come as a surprise. The man is a crook and will do absolutely anything to divert the public's attention from the mess he's really in.

This is going to be a "wild" year, and who knows what position former SecGen Ozawa will be in, if at all. The clock on PM Kan is ticking, so who knows?......

An excellent article, written in a very professional way that gives the reader a good glimpse at how fickle the Japanese political areana really is.

Yet, he didn't mention at all what he had done if he were the leader.

I agree that it is nice to see some quality writing on this site once in a while, but it is disappointing that the author has gone the easy route on basically following the Kisha-club/LDP/beaurocracy line of continuing to demonize him in the press.

First up, let's be clear - Ozawa isn't exactly Jack Kennedy reborn. He lacks charisma and general popular appeal, and his ability to survive in Japanese politics for so long is in part due to his ability to understand and play the game of Japanese politics arguably better than anyone else.

He has also survived because he isn't greedy. In spite of having had chances to lead the Democrats, Liberals and LDP in the past in the typical fly by night way that most PMs do, having a brief stint in leadership and then going into quiet semi-retirement, he has survived by being willing to step back and allow others to take the top posts in order to continue to maintain a position of influence and authority within his party.

Now, I like Ozawa, basically because he is the only person who I believe is capable of (1) ensuring that the DPJ can survive another election, (2) instituting the reforms necessary to remove the beaurocratic stranglehold over policymaking, (3) forming policies free of administrative guidance that Japan needs to modernize and reform its economic and political system, in the ways that he understands need to be done. He also understand the cold hard realities about Japan's relations with China and the US.

Kan strikes me as being generally probably a much nicer guy, but the author talks about factionalism like it is all coming from Ozawa and conveniently overlooked several facts, such as the fact that the DPJ is basically half made up of Liberal Party members, including Hatoyama who personally is the financial anchor of the party - Hatoyama and Ozawa understood the need for cross factional cooperation in the Hatoyama government with posts being awarded to ex socialists like Kan as well as more conservative former Liberal party members.

Kan used Hatoyama's demise opportunistically to disenfranchise nearly 50% of his party shutting out all ex-Liberal members from leading party posts and backpeddalling on the policies masterminded by Ozawa that got the DPJ elected into power. Take a look at the last DPJ conference and how proposals to update the manifesto were railroaded through the party (even with Ozawa absent) and the chaos that happened with worried DPJ members from those factions asking how they were supposed to go back and explain that the party was unwinding the platforms they had been elected on.

Then look further at the complete disaster of the last upper house election under Kan, who used his brief time campaigning to break or recant most of the party's popular existing manifesto policies and speculate out loud about raising sales tax. Ozawa is a professional election campaigner responsible for getting the DPJ into power. Look at Kan's record. The man is a professional loser of elections. He has always been competent given a ministerial post, as he was in the ministry of finance under Hatoyama - but he shows next to zero leadership. Most people think Japan has been run by Edano throughout the recent crisis.

Kan somehow decided, as he has in the past, that he could get away with excluding half his party and giving all posts only to his good friends, and somehow they would all make it work and he would be successful at the next election. That has never happened before and it is not happening now - Kan is proving to be a train wreck of party leadership and is endangering the faint promise of Japan having a viable party to swap power periodically with the LDP.

Then take the funds law prosecution of Ozawa - the author seems well informed enough to understand that scandals don't get broken in the mainstream media spontaneously in Japan. They get broken because the Kanryo in kasumigaseki pull the file on someone they think is getting too uppity. And they fear what might happen to their power base if Ozawa gets into too much of a position of power within the government.

In spite of prosecutors deciding 3 times that he had no case to answer, the trial by media was already over and a grand jury decided to proceed regardless. His number was up and the institution was doing what was necessary to stop him shaking things up, as is so desperately needed.

Instead of Kan supporting the leader of the conservative half of his party, he threw him, and all the young new DPJ politicians that give them their tenuous majority in the Diet under the bus. Who is being factional and opportunistic?

I agree with the author that now is as good a time as any to "end" factionalism in Japanese politics, but it should be done through inclusion, not by declaring the former socialists winners and demanding everyone else keep their views to themselves.

I will agree with the author that I think this is a time that the government does need to pull together for better or worse. LDP said yesterday that they would submit a motion of no confidence in the PM over his performance in the crisis - I think the time for any such motion should come after the crisis is more resolved. Ozawa could certainly be said to have chosen damaging timing to make his criticisms.

However, if the government wants to solidify and reassert internal consensus, the factional games need to stop from those in power and they need to start listening to their constituents and young members who are responsible for getting them into power. And these political charades with the prosecution of Ozawa need to end soon as well.

Ozawa isn't much, but I think within Japanese politics, he is the best hope for someone capable of instituting real and necessary reform that exists.

Peace

Ozawa should be sacked from office and from the Party !

I wish Ozawa and the LDP could read this and realize what they are doing. I wish Kan and the DPJ could read this article and force this selfish politician to resign.

I would be shocked if Ozawa supported Kan.

Ozawa shows his disloyalty to Kan

He destroyed DPJ since he challenged Kan's leadership in September, 2011 and divided DPJ by asking his DPJ supporters to discredit Kan's capability and create troubles more and less. What is the point now?

Correction: September, 2010, not 2011.

I don't give a rat's derrier if he is a bigwig. He is a politician. The only question he has to answer is "What have you done for me lately?"

Sarge - Ozawa gave Kan the minister of finance post when Hatoyama was in govt. He was quite inclusive of Kan's former socialist factions.

Kan is the guy not playing ball and threatening the DPJ.