麻生太郎

Taro Aso, the hapless and gaff-prone Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Prime Minister has called a snap election for August 30 following his party's resounding defeat in local Tokyo elections on Sunday.

The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won 54 seats to the LDP's 34.

Aso is the 4th Prime Minister since the last general election in 2005 following Junichiro Koizumi, Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda.

The choice awaiting the Japanese electorate in August is between two conservative parties with similar agendas and backgrounds. One political commentator has likened Aso and his opponent, DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama, to "Tweedledee and Tweedledum."

Both are aged, wealthy scions of political dynasties, but with Aso's popularity ratings hovering around the 20% mark, it seems the Japanese public are ready to to give Tweedledum a chance this time around.

Yukio Hatoyama replaced Ichiro Ozawa as leader of the DPJ earlier this year, after the latter became embroiled in a financing scandal.

Hatoyama, like Aso, is a super-rich, blue-blooded, hereditary politician and likewise a grandson of a former conservative party prime minister.

A graduate of Tokyo University, Hatoyama's grandfather Ichiro Hatoyama was a hawkish prime minister in the 1950s, Hatoyama's father Iichiro Hatoyama was Japan's foreign minister for a period in the 1970s. His brother Kunio Hatoyama is a leading LDP politician. Plus ça change.


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小沢一郎

Ichiro Ozawa, leader of Japan's main opposition party Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), has announced he will step down in the wake of a fundraising scandal that has reduced his popularity and that of his party battling to end the unpopular Liberal Democratic Party's grip on power.

Prosecutors in Tokyo have alleged that Ozawa's political fundraising organisation received 21 million yen ($216,000) in illegal donations from a mid-size construction company, Nishimatsu Construction between 2003-2007. Ozawa replied that he believes the charges are politically motivated.

Ozawa's move comes ahead of a general election that must be called before October this year. The Democratic Party of Japan has a real chance of toppling the government of Taro Aso and the LDP and Ozawa stressed that his move was to limit damage to his party before the poll.

Ozawa entered politics in the late 1960s and was elected to the Diet in 1969, becoming a member of the powerful Kakuei Tanaka faction.

Ozawa has twice held key offices in previous LDP governments, first in 1985 as Home Affairs Minister under Yasuhiro Nakasone and in 1989 as LDP Secretary General.

During the fall-out from the Sagawa Kyubin/Shin Kanemaru corruption scandal, Ozawa jumped ship from the LDP, where he had made many enemies during his heady rise, to form the Japan Renewal Party in 1992 along with long-time ally Tsutomu Hata.

This alliance lead to the end of LDP rule for the first time in 38 years with the short-lived administration of Morihiro Hosokawa in 1993, while Ozawa and Hata pulled the strings in the background in true kuromaki style.

Ozawa's became the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) from 2003, where he has joined forces once more with Tsutomu Hata. Ozawa was forced to step down briefly as leader in 2004, when he was caught up (along with a number of Japan's political elite) in the ongoing Pension Scandal.


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中川財務相

The latest calamity to befall the cabinet of hapless Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, was the "drunken" performance of his Minister of Finance, Shoichi Nakagawa, at a G7 meeting in Rome.



Nakagawa blamed his slurred performance on a heavy dose of cold medicine and jet lag. Nakagawa claimed he's imbibed no more than a glass of wine on his flight over from Japan. Nakagawa, who is known to like a drink, says he will resign after the government has passed its latest finance bill in the Japanese Diet and not before.

"I feel terribly sorry for the Japanese public as well as the Diet that such footage and words of mine were conveyed to the world," a contrite Mr Nakagawa told a parliamentary panel.


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Three young demonstrators were arrested by Japanese police in Shibuya, Tokyo after taking part in a "Reality Tour" to view Prime Minister Taro Aso's luxury mansion located in the area on October 26.



The march to the 6.2 billion yen apartment of Japan's latest PM, Taro Aso was organized by "Part-timer, Arbeiter, Freeter & Foreign Workers" to emphasise the income gap in Japanese society.

Japanese police argue the demonstration was unauthorized and they had issued warnings to the participants to stop before making their arrests.

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