is a Japanese politician and has been a member of the House of Representatives since 1969, representing the Iwate 3rd district (Iwate 2nd district prior to the 1996 general election and Iwate 4th district prior to the 2017 general election). He is often dubbed the "Shadow Shōgun" due to his back-room influence. He was initially a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), serving as its secretary general from 1989 to 1991. He left the LDP in 1993 and subsequently served as head of a number of other political parties, first by co-founding the Japan Renewal Party with Tsutomu Hata, which formed a short-lived coalition government with several other parties opposed to the LDP. Ozawa later served as president of the opposition New Frontier Party from 1995 to 1997, president of the Liberal Party from 1998 to 2003 (which was part of a coalition government with the LDP of Keizō Obuchi from 1999 to 2000), president of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) from 2006 to 2009 and secretary-general of the DPJ in government from 2009 to 2010. In July 2012 he left the DPJ with around fifty followers to found the People's Life First party in a protest against the DPJ's plan to raise the Japanese consumption tax. Ozawa's party merged with the newly founded Tomorrow Party of Japan of Shiga governor Yukiko Kada prior to the 2012 general election, in which the party performed poorly. Ozawa and his followers then left to form the Life Party. Early life Ozawa was born in Tokyo on 24 May 1942. His father, Saeki, was a self-made businessman, who was elected to the House of Representatives from Iwate district. The hometown of his family was Mizusawa, Iwate, which remained the stories of the Emishi leader Aterui's resistance movement. Ozawa attended Keio University, graduating in 1967, and entered postgraduate school in Nihon University. Ozawa was majoring in law and intended to become an attorney. In May 1968, his father died of heart failure. Political career Tanaka faction (1969–1987) After his father's death, Ozawa ran for his father's seat in the 1969 general election, winning the seat at the age of 27. He held the seat, now known as the Iwate 4th district, until the 2021 general election, winning fourteen re-elections over more than four decades. Shortly after his initial election, he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, temporarily lost his voice and considered