Japan's political power broker Ichiro Ozawa, who broke away from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) along with 49 rebel lawmakers last week protesting Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's sales tax hike proposal, has launched a new party called "Kokumin no Seikatsu ga Daiichi" which translates as People's Lives First, DPJ's campaign slogan in the last general election.
Ozawa's new party has 12 lawmakers in the Upper House, and 37 in the Lower House of Parliament, making it the third-largest bloc in the Lower Chamber, which is strong enough to pose a threat to Nodas grip on power if it joins hands with other Opposition parties.
At the party's inaugural convention in Tokyo on Wednesday, Ozawa vowed to challenge the government over its sales tax hike policy, and blamed the ruling party of "betraying the Japanese people." The party's policies will be announced next week.
Ozawa launched his new party on the same day when the Opposition-controlled House of Concilors began deliberations on the tax hike bill, which he vowed to defeat when it comes to a vote next month.
In an anticipated move that was to weaken the Japanese government, the rebel DPJ faction led by Ozawa quit the party on July 2. It came days after they voted against the bill to hike sales tax in the House of Representatives. But the bill was passed with comfortable majority, as DPJ, the main Opposition Liberal Democratic Party and its ally, the New Komeito party, voted for it.
With the support of the two main Opposition parties assured, the bill is expected to pass in the Upper House to become law.
Noda says doubling the sales tax rate in two stages to ten percent by 2015 is inevitable to help cut Japan's public debt and to fund rising welfare costs.
Political analysts say Ozawa's latest move is aimed to engineer another wave of political realignments with the ruling party set to suffer defeat at the polls in sight next year over its tax hike and reactor restarts.
But National polls have shown that while the public remains split on the tax hike, majority of them expect little from the new party of Ozawa, who caused a split in the Liberal Democratic Party in 1993, and is credited with leading the DPJ to power in 2009.
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