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TOKYO: Japan's main opposition party will on Saturday choose a new leader to take on Premier Taro Aso in polls later this year, replacing Ichiro Ozawa who resigned over a money scandal, officials said.
Ozawa said on Monday he would step down as head of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) ahead of elections that could end more than half a century of nearly unbroken rule by Aso's conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
He did not say who may succeed him at the helm of the party, which controls the upper house of parliament. Media reports said leading candidates would be party secretary general Yukio Hatoyama and former party leader Katsuya Okada.
A DPJ official said on Tuesday that party lawmakers would choose a new leader on Saturday.
A one-time LDP member, Ozawa led in opinion polls for months over Aso, who took office in September but suffered a plunge in support over a series of gaffes and Japan's worst economic slump since World War II.
But Ozawa saw voter support slip away fast after a top aide was indicted in March for allegedly taking illegal donations from a construction company that apparently hoped for lucrative public works contracts in Ozawa's district.
Ozawa, a political veteran and party heavyweight, has maintained that he has done nothing wrong, and he plans to stay on as a DPJ lawmaker.
- AFP/so
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