Mrs. Begum K. Taj

DAISUKE KATO, GANJIRO NAKAMURA EITARO OZAWA, KEIKO AWAJI

Had Nan lost to Ozawa, he would have lost the premiership to him as well.

An Ozawa government might be stable only if he could form a grand coalition.

Forcing Ozawa to step down with him can perhaps be said to be Hatoyama s only meaningful decision as prime minister, for Ozawa s departure from the political scene if it sticks is the far more important event.

He has centralized the DPJ s contacts with lobbyists at his office in the Diet (Parliament).

Yet, given strong public sentiment against Ozawa, that is impossible.

By indicting people close to Ozawa, the prosecutors appear to be acting in defense of the status quo .

By shattering that coalition, Hatoyama destroyed the governing majority Ozawa had worked so cunningly to construct.

Mr. Ozawa (Japan) My delegation will touch upon both agenda item 66 and agenda item 47.

In 1999, Ozawa seized control of the DPJ, which Hatoyama and Naoto Kan, the new prime minister, had founded.

Consequently, several dozen legislators, led by the perpetual rebel Ichiro Ozawa, defected from the DPJ, forming a new rump opposition party.

With Ozawa gone, not only does the DPJ now have an opportunity to renew itself, but so does the LDP.

Ozawa s fall can but may not return Japanese politics to where it belongs in the hands of its elected leaders.

Ozawa, the all powerful Secretary General of DPJ, has been accused of using party funds to buy real estate, and of receiving bribes from construction companies.

Meanwhile, Ozawa s electoral challenge has left the DPJ more divided than ever.

Appeasing Ozawa, however, is contrary to public sentiment and detrimental to the DPJ s hopes of regaining popular support.

Having lost all support within his own party, Hatoyama had no choice but to resign. Forcing Ozawa to step down with him can perhaps be said to be Hatoyama s only meaningful decision as prime minister, for Ozawa s departure from the political scene if it sticks is the far more important event.

DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa the party s shadowy power broker resigned from his post simultaneously with Hatoyama.

Ironically, Ozawa s power results from the rise and fall of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the LDP.

Now that the DPJ has won the most recent upper and lower house elections, Ozawa s faction has become the largest by far within the party.

Their vote was more in line with recent public opinion polls, which showed popular support running at seven to two in favor of Kan over Ozawa.

Recently, Ozawa had a visit that he made to Tanaka s tombstone televised, thereby holding himself up to the public as Tanaka s heir.

Prosecutors have so far taken an aggressive approach to the cases involving Ozawa s aides, just as they once did with Tanaka.

Mr. Ozawa (Japan) At the outset, my delegation would like to thank President Philippe Kirsch for his in depth report on the current work of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Ozawa s aspiration to make the next election the grand finale of his political career by cementing the DPJ as a party of government now seems in jeopardy.

While committed to the bilateral US Japan alliance, Ozawa has said that Japan s security requires the continued presence only of the US Seventh Fleet, not of US ground troops.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan has been elected President of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), surviving a challenge from Ichiro Ozawa, the DPJ s most potent behind the scenes power broker.

Small wonder, then, that Hatoyama advocated replacing Kan with Ozawa, even though Hatoyama insisted that Ozawa resign when he was forced from the premiership three months ago.

Mr. Ozawa (Japan) Japan believes that a holistic and comprehensive approach is necessary in our efforts to strengthen the coordination of humanitarian and disaster relief assistance of the United Nations.

Mr. Ozawa (Japan) My delegation wishes to exercise its right reply in connection with the statement made by the representative of China regarding atrocities during the Second World War in Asia.

A protégé of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, an infamous LDP kingpin, Ozawa s political methods epitomized the worst aspects of the LDP s old factional plutocracy. But in 1993, having failed to gain control of the party, he bolted, along with 45 other Diet members to create the Shinsei Party, supposedly to press for electoral reform.

Although Ozawa retains considerable influence and so may be able to exercise his will on the DPJ, this must not be allowed to happen.

Although he distances himself from formal policy making within the executive branch, Ozawa in fact masterminds the entire legislative process, including the budget and appropriations.

But, as the LDP retained the most seats in the upper house, it soon forged a coalition with its long time rivals, the Social Democrats, forcing Ozawa back into opposition.

Mr. Ozawa (Japan) Today the number of States parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is 149, and there are 122 States parties to the Agreement on the Implementation of Part XI of the Convention.

As a former finance minister, deputy prime minister, and the product of a grass roots civil society movement, Prime Minister Kan has his work cut out for him, particularly as it is rumored that Ozawa intends to topple him in the autumn.

Japan s state prosecutor has, for example, accused Ichiro Ozawa, the General Secretary of the newly elected Democratic Party of Japan, of having received illegal funds to run the DPJ s recent campaign against the Liberal Democratic Party.

But, while Koizumi successfully knocked out the Tanaka faction within the LDP, many of Tanaka s adherents ,led by Ozawa, had re established themselves by colonizing and taking over the DPJ.

Mr. Ozawa (Japan) Our deliberations on this agenda item are very timely, especially since the results of the parliamentary and provincial council elections held on 18 September have just been confirmed.

Ozawa, had he become prime minister, would inevitably have been subjected to not only similar obstruction in Diet sessions but also to interrogation about his financing scandal, while fearing prosecution.

Ozawa s political style is that of his mentor, former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka (1972 1974), who became the longtime boss of the biggest faction of the former ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) after his resignation following bribery charges.

But Ozawa remains combative, hinting that the two sides are engaged in a grudge match and knowing that his faction can intervene through the ruling DPJ to shake up the personnel, budget, and operations of the prosecutor s office.

That the ruling Democratic Party of Japan now seems trapped in a power struggle between Prime Minister Naoto Kan and party power broker Ichiro Ozawa suggests that serious economic reform is not at the top of the DPJ agenda.

That three close aides to Ozawa have been indicted only months after the DPJ s victory strikes many Japanese as odd, given the well known corruption of the LDP when in power.