SENDAI (Kyodo) Former Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa suggested Sunday that the ruling party would suffer a crushing defeat if the House of Representatives is dissolved and a general election is held under Naoto Kan's leadership.
"If it comes to a dissolution and general election under the way things are, we might have to battle the election amid a completely different wind compared with two years ago," Ozawa said at a DPJ lawmaker's party in Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture.
Ozawa was referring to the Lower House election in August 2009, in which the DPJ clinched a landmark victory that ended the conservative Liberal Democratic Party's nearly uninterrupted grip on power, which lasted for more than half a century.