The Japanese media is reporting that Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa is set to resign at a press conference scheduled for 5:00 this afternoon.

Although details are still sketchy, Ozawa must be feeling the pressure of public opinion, which has indicated that his party’s chances will be hurt with him at the helm in the upcoming Lower House election.

More to come on this breaking story.

Post-Press Conference Update:
DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa, of course, announced his resignation as party leader, but, it is imortant to note, neither as a Diet member representing an Iwate constituency nor as a member of the DPJ and gave indication that he would remain active in politics as well as in the upcoming general election. Although the new DPJ chief was not announced, the names being most bandied about at this point are Katsuya Okada, who led the DPJ during its ill-fated campaign for the September 2005 general election (not that there’s much he could have done, as then-PM Koizumi successfully made the election LDP vs. LDP), and Yukio Hatoyama, who does most of the party’s talking in public and seems to walk a kind of middle ground at times between Ozawa and the younger, more eagerly reformist element of the not-quite-unified party Naoto Kan. Look for Ozawa’s influence, if not his face, during this summer’s campaign.

Although he didn’t say it in the press conference and denied any wrongdoing, Ozawa clearly stepped down at least partly because the ongoing kerfuffle over his secretary, Takanori Okubo’s, indictment was certainly not helping the DPJ, nor, one could reasonably suspect, was the ease with which Ozawa could be painted as the old school, old guard, old way leader of the would-be reforming opposition camp.

While the tardiness of Ozawa’s resignation is being talked of as harmful to the DPJ, once the party gets the new leader’s face out there and the campaign starts up, Ozawa and his scandals are not likely to be a major issue.

Ozawa suggested waiting until after deliberations for the fiscal 2009 budget concluded to hold an election for party president, but Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama, an Ozawa supporter who also announced his resignation, said he expected the election to be scheduled for sometime in the next couple of weeks at the party’s executive meeting on Tuesday.

While Okada seems to be the most likely candidate, some observers consider him less likely to compromise on principles in order to hold an opposition coalition together. Nonetheless, Mizuho Fukushima, head of the Social Democratic Party, said her party would stand with the DPJ regardless of who takes over.

- GSD