Ichirō Ozawa

Who is Ichirō Ozawa?

Ichirō Ozawa is a Japanese politician. Formerly a chief secretary of the Liberal Democratic Party, he later defected from the LDP. He was the president of Japan's main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, from 2006 until May 2009, when he resigned over a fund scandal, and secretary general of the party from 2009 to 2010, when Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama announced that they were both stepping down from respective leadership positions. Ozawa is often dubbed as the "Shadow Shogun" due to his influence within the DPJ. In July 2012 he left the DPJ with a number of other DPJ members to found the People's Life First party, which merged with the newly founded Tomorrow Party of Japan of Shiga governor Yukiko Kada. The party performed poorly in the 2012 general election, and Ozawa and his followers left to form the Life Party.