Third in a series
One year ago, Toru Hashimoto was the toast of the nation's media, with many predicting the outspoken Osaka mayor, who was then laying plans for a new national party, would become prime minister after the next Lower House election. Politicians ranging from Shinzo Abe and Ichiro Ozawa to Shintaro Ishihara were feting him and wooing him for a postelection coalition.
What a difference a year makes.
Despite winning 54 seats in December's House of Representatives poll and his party becoming the third-largest in the chamber, Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) enters the July 21 Upper House election bruised, battered and divided, with predictions it will only win half a dozen seats and growing speculation that Hashimoto, its founder and co-leader, will resign afterward.