Bold reformer or backroom fixer? Daniel Sneider comments on Japan's opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa

Old-style backroom fixer or committed reformer who can shake up Japan's paralyzed politics? Daniel C. Sneider: "[Ichiro Ozawa] wanted to end the monopoly of the LDP, create a more competitive political system, and take the power out of the hands of the bureaucrats."

"He's never really wavered from his idea of how Japanese politics should be reorganised," said Daniel Sneider of Stanford University's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

"He wanted to end the monopoly of the LDP, create a more competitive political system and take the power out of the hands of the bureaucrats."