The upcoming Lower House election is the last chance for Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party) to stop postal privatization — and failure would leave the party's survival in doubt, leader Tamisuke Watanuki said.
"This election is the last chance," Watanuki said during a recent group interview. If the party fails, "our existence would be threatened, so we are putting everything we've got into this one battle."
Watanuki, a former speaker of the Lower House, is a veteran lawmaker and one of the "postal reform rebels" who were not allowed to run on the Liberal Democratic Party ticket in the 2005 election due to their opposition to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's plan to privatize the postal services.