Hatoyama Reelected as Head of Japan's Largest Opposition Party

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, September 23, 2002

Hatoyama Reelected as Head of Japan's Largest Opposition Party

Yukio Hatoyama, leader of Japan's largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), was re-electedas party head in a runoff on Monday, Japan's Kyodo News reported.

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Yukio Hatoyama, leader of Japan's largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), was re-elected as party head in a runoff on Monday, Japan's Kyodo News reported.

The 55-year-old Hatoyama garnered 254 of a total 496 points tallied from nationwide votes representing DPJ members in the Diet, candidates for the next lower-house election, and rank-and-file members and supporters.

His rival in the run-off, DPJ Secretary General Naoto Kan, collected 242 points.

None of the four candidates for DPJ head won a majority in the first round of votes which was held earlier in the day in the party's extraordinary convention at a Tokyo hotel, necessitating a runoff between Hatoyama and Kan, Kyodo reported.

An urgent task for Hatoyama, now on his third term as DPJ head, will be to raise the falling support rate of the party, which only holds 124 of the 480 seats in Japan's powerful House of Representatives, or the lower house.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has 239 seats in the lower house.

Hatoyama, a lower house member from Hokkaido's No. 9 constituency, was first chosen as DPJ leader in 1999.

In the next leadership race a year later, Hatoyama won a second term without challengers. The term of a DPJ leader was extended to two years from one year at that time.

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