Liberal Democratic Party candidate Kunio Hatoyama, the younger brother of Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama, said Friday he is prepared for criticism over his decision to leave the DPJ.
"I was not as ready to work with leftists as my brother Yukio," Kunio Hatoyama told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. He is running as an LDP candidate in the June 25 Lower House election.
The younger Hatoyama, 51, originally an LDP lawmaker, helped launch the DPJ, the main opposition force, in September 1996 with his 53-year-old brother and former Health and Welfare Minister Naoto Kan.