DJ: Ozawa Leaves DPJ, Noda's Grip Weakened

TOKYO--Japanese ruling party Vice-President Kenji Yamaoka said Monday that Ichiro Ozawa is leaving the party along with 51 other lawmakers, undermining Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's grip on power less than a week after he won key passage of a divisive bill to raise the consumption tax.

Mr. Ozawa's decision to break ranks with the Democratic Party of Japan is another chapter in the dramatic career of the 70-year-old politician, dubbed the "destroyer" by Japanese media for instigating splits in a number of political parties over two decades.

The departures leave the ruling DPJ with a slimmer majority in the lower house, raising the prospect of Mr. Noda being forced out of office should more party rebels follow suit.

"We handed in our resignations to the secretary general," Kenji Yamaoka, Mr. Ozawa's aide, told reporters.

The DPJ-led ruling coalition would lose its majority in the lower house if 55 of its members in the chamber leave, depriving it of the power to block the passage of a no-confidence vote against the prime minister. If the vote passes, Mr. Noda must either resign, or dissolve parliament for a general election.

Of the 52 members that left the party on Monday, 40 were with the more powerful lower house that chooses the prime minister, and the remainder with the upper house.

Mr. Noda assumed office only last September, and is Japan's sixth prime minister in six years. The ruling party split underscores the volatility that dogs the country's political system.

While the two largest opposition parties have thrown their support behind the tax bill and seek its passage in the upper house, they are threatening to submit a no-confidence vote against Mr. Noda once the bill is approved, expected to be in August.