Tea-Party Mayor Touting Japan Dictatorship Risks Worse Slump
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Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto has become a TV icon with attacks on everything from bureaucracy to nuclear power and the political feuding that has stifled the economy. His success may be about to make things worse.
The 42-year-old lawyer, who has said the country needs a “dictatorship,” is building his One Osaka party to contest national elections that must be held by August 2013, tapping voter discontent with the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and opposition Liberal Democratic Party that between them have overseen a 10 percent economic contraction in the past 14 years.