Japan’s battle-scarred main opposition party on Sunday chose Katsuya Okada as its new leader as it tries to recover from a disastrous showing in December’s general election and years of drift.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s crushing win last month—his second in two years—was believed by some commentators to be largely due to the absence of a credible alternative.
The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which governed for three years until December 2012, won just 73 seats in the 475-seat lower house where Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party has 291 seats.
Okada, a 61-year-old Harvard-trained former deputy prime minister, will have his work cut out rebuilding public trust in the nominally centre-left party. Its three years in power to December 2012 were characterised by power struggles, policy flip-flops and diplomatic mis-steps.
“I want to rebuild the DPJ by returning to our starting point,” Okada said in a speech before his fellow DPJ lawmakers voted Sunday. “We are a party for consumers, ordinary citizens, taxpayers and working people,” he said.