Japan’s Main Opposition Party to Disband, Chief Says
The leader of Japan’s main opposition party announced Friday the dissolution of the 3-year-old party.
In a boost for beleaguered Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, New Frontier Party leader Ichiro Ozawa told a news conference that the formal disbanding of the party will take place today at a meeting of NFP lawmakers.
NFP sources said that Ozawa and 100 lawmakers plan to form a new party in early January.
The NFP has 47 members in the 252-seat House of Councillors, or upper house, and 126 members in the more powerful 500-seat House of Representatives.
The NFP’s breakup gives Hashimoto, whose popularity is at a record low because of Japan’s ailing economy, the parliamentary leeway to push through measures to restore the country’s financial reputation.
His Liberal Democratic Party has a bare four-seat majority in the lower house and 117 seats in the upper house, where it rules with the help of smaller parties.
Political analysts said that with the NFP breakup, Hashimoto no longer needs to worry about defections from the Liberal Democrats bringing down his government after parliament resumes in mid-January.
The NFP was formed in December 1994 through an alliance among nine small opposition parties whose only common plank was opposition to Hashimoto’s long-ruling party.
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