Ichirō Ozawa - Split From The LDP

Split From The LDP

Ozawa's skill in behind-the-scenes maneuvers led to a meteoric rise in power within the LDP, although there were also many factions who turned against him. Senior leaders resented having to appeal to the much younger Ozawa for support. (Kiichi Miyazawa, twenty years his senior, once addressed Ozawa as "Great Secretary General" in a leadership meeting). Ozawa's reputation for organisation was soon matched by his reputation as a young upstart.

With rival factions turning on him, he began to draw more support from close ally Tsutomu Hata and his followers. Hata and Ozawa had been the leading reformers in the Takeshita faction, and had attached themselves to powerful patriarch Shin Kanemaru. When Kanemaru was implicated in a corruption scandal in 1992, it provided a line of attack against Ozawa. In 1993, after realising that Kanemaru's impending trial would provide ample ammunition for his critics, Ozawa made an unexpected move — he and Hata formed the splinter Japan Renewal Party, seriously destabilising the LDP, and eventually ending its 38–year dominance of Japanese politics.