Japan's opposition leader hospitalised: party

Tue Oct 7, 1:03 AM ET

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa, who has struggled to portray himself as fit to be prime minister ahead of elections, checked into hospital for several days with a bad cold, his party said Tuesday.

Ozawa, 66, who has had a history of health problems, went to a Tokyo hospital late Monday after his voice grew so hoarse he had trouble speaking.

"I presume he's taking two or three days off as a break," Yukio Hatoyama, the secretary general of Ozawa's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), told reporters.



The DPJ declined to provide details. Jiji Press reported that Ozawa was receiving fluid from a drip and resting.

In recent days, Ozawa has been seen at party meetings wearing a scarf and a small mask over his mouth.

A former heavy smoker, Ozawa was hospitalised for 10 days last year due to fears of a relapse of a heart ailment.

The DPJ is hoping for a landmark victory in upcoming elections against the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has been in power for all but 10 months since 1955 but has gone through four prime ministers in the past two years.

Newspaper polls show that the DPJ has taken a narrow lead in voter preferences. But Ozawa lags far behind Prime Minister Taro Aso as the public's choice to the next leader.

Ozawa, a former ruling party stalwart who defected in 1993, has a rough public image. He has won the nickname "The Destroyer" for his passion for battles in parliament.

Last week he presented to parliament an outline of a DPJ-led government, promising to fix Japan's ailing pension system, close the widening gap between rich and poor and curb the powerful bureaucracy.

Aso took office on September 24 with a mission to lead his party into elections. But Aso said Monday he would not call snap polls immediately, hoping instead to focus on reviving the economy.