Taku Yamasaki, a former vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party, is considering running in this summer's House of Councilors election for another party, possibly Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party), sources close to him said Wednesday.
The former construction minister and defense chief recently contacted a senior lawmaker of Kokumin Shinto, one of the two junior coalition partners in Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan-led government, according to the sources.
If the heavyweight left the LDP, which the DPJ ousted from almost five decades of unbroken rule last August, that could further damage the leadership of LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki, who is seeking to revitalize a party struggling to regroup.