Political Career
Hatoyama ran for a seat in Hokkaidō's 9th district and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1986 representing the ruling LDP. In 1993 he left the LDP to form the New Party Sakigake with Naoto Kan, Masayoshi Takemura and Shūsei Tanaka (田中秀征?). He and Kan then left to join the newly formed Democratic Party of Japan (1996).
Hatoyama and his younger brother, Kunio Hatoyama, co-created the party, using billions of yen donated by their mother, Yasuko. Kunio Hatoyama eventually left the DPJ, saying the party had drifted too far to the left from its original centrist roots, and rejoined the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Yukio remained with the party through its merger with several other opposition parties in 1998.
The elder Hatoyama became the Democratic Party of Japan's Party Chairman and leader of the opposition from 1999 to 2002, after which he resigned to take responsibility for the confusion that arose from rumors of mergers with Ichirō Ozawa's then Liberal Party. He was Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) before he succeeded Ozawa as party leader following Ozawa's resignation on 11 May 2009. Hatoyama was chosen by fellow party representatives on 16 May 2009, winning 124 of the 219 votes and defeating rival Katsuya Okada.
Because of his quirky hairstyle, prominent eyes, and eccentric manner, he is known by his supporters and his opposition alike as "ET" or "The Alien", a nickname his wife states he earned because of how different he is from old-style Japanese politicians. Another nickname commonly used by the Japanese public in press was Popo, after a children's song about a pigeon that starts with the lyric "popopo, hato popo"; the first character in Hatoyama's last name is the Japanese word for 'pigeon'.
Read more about this topic: Yukio Hatoyama
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