Today Japan's main opposition party the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) picked Hatoyama Yukio as its new president. Hatoyama won the presidency in a vote among DPJ Diet members from both houses, defeating Okada Katsuya 124 to 95. Both Hatoyama and Okada are former DPJ presidents, Hatoyama serving from 1999-2002 and Okada from 2004-2005. The president of the party becomes prime minister if the party wins a majority of seats in the lower house of the Diet. Hatoyama is also the grandson of a former prime minister.
Hatoyama will succeed Ozawa Ichirou who resigned as president after the arrest of his secretary in a fund-raising scandal. Before Ozawa's scandal the DPJ held high opinion poll ratings and were predicted to win a majority of seats in the coming general election to the lower house of the Diet that must be held by October. As a result of the scandal the DPJ and reigning LDP are now neck and neck in opinion polls. If the DPJ wins only a plurality of seats in the coming election the LDP may be able to form a coalition government with its partner New Komeito and continue its nearly uninterrupted half-century rule over Japan.
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