ICHIRO OZAWA

The defeat of Ichiro Ozawa in the contest for the leadership of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan is good news for anybody concerned about the country's future. Since a victory for Mr. Ozawa would automatically have made him Prime Minister, much was at stake. Japan is not out of the woods yet, but at least one potential problem seems to have become smaller.

Mr. Ozawa is the great destructive force in Japanese politics. A consummate politician, who was first elected to the Diet before he was 30, he became secretary general of the permanently ruling Liberal Democratic Party in 1989 while still in his late 40's, ridiculously young by Japanese standards. His organisational skills and ability to forge compromises amongst the LDP's factions earned him respect and hatred in equal measure from his older colleagues. The latter won; and when Mr. Ozawa's patron was implicated in a corruption scandal in 1992, the knives came out. Mr. Ozawa saw the writing on the wall, and in 1993 stormed out of the LDP to form the Japan Renewal Party. For the next decade, the big question in Japanese politics was whether Mr. Ozawa and his supporters would return to the LDP in some way or try to wreck it from outside. There were many twists and turns in this story, but the endgame was reached in 2003 when he and his supporters joined the DJP. Mr. Ozawa eventually became its leader, and in 2007 led the party to victory in the upper house elections. This was followed by a thumping victory for the DJP in the elections for the much more important lower house of the Diet in August 2009. For the first time since the Second World War, the LDP seemed a spent force.

By then, Mr. Ozawa was no longer leader, but the party's secretary general. A scandal had forced him to resign, to be replaced by Yukio Hatayama, who became Prime Minister after the election. Mr. Ozawa was not in Government, but was widely perceived as the power behind the scenes. A further scandal brought down both men in June 2010, when Naoto Kan took over as party leader and Prime Minister. It was Mr. Kan, who narrowly won this week's vote, after Mr. Ozawa had challenged him to the leadership.

The election showed why people are either for or against Mr. Ozawa. Mr. Kan won, because he got the backing of local lawmakers and party members, who are sick of the continual changes in party and national leadership. Yet he won just a bare majority of the party's M.P.'s, as a large faction remains loyal to Mr. Ozawa. Will the latter now break away from the DPJ, and start the realignment process all over again? After all, one of the scandals during his time as DPJ leader was his attempt back in 2007 to forge a grand coalition with the LDP.

A new rupture might suit Mr. Ozawa's personal ambitions, but would not be good for Japan. The 17 years since Mr. Ozawa's original split from the LDP have coincided with the stagnation of the Japanese economy. It is clear that the LDP (widely held to be neither liberal, democratic nor a party) was not up to the job of sorting out the mess. With its resounding victory in 2009, it appeared that the electorate thought that the DPJ might do rather better. However, Mr. Ozawa's antics have shown that he is in many ways merely the LDP in different clothing. Stopping him becoming leader was the first step in the DJP's showing that things really are different, and that the old, unaccountable ways really are a thing of the past. As I say, Japan is not out of the woods yet by any means. But at least the DJP has given itself the chance to do something about the problems. If Mr. Ozawa could agree to harness his formidable talents to this endeavour, then the chance would be even bigger. Time will show if he can.

Walter Blotscher