70% public support for forcing Ozawa to leave office. A prosecution inquest panel concluded in April that "it is highly likely that Ozawa is an accomplice and should therefore stand trial." Hatoyama and Ozawa announced their resignations as president and secretary general of the DPJ in June, due in part to the scandal as well as Hatoyama's failure to keep a campaign pledge regarding US military bases in Okinawa. Their resignations were intended to save the DPJ's chances in the House of Councillors election later that year. Ozawa was formally indicted in January 2011 for his involvement in the scandal. The Tokyo District Court rejected most of the depositions taken by prosecutors in the case on procedural grounds, and Ozawa was eventually acquitted in April. Prosecutors appealed the case to the Tokyo High Court, which upheld Ozawa's acquittal in November 2012. Post-DPJ (2012–present) After a disagreement with DPJ prime minister Yoshihiko Noda over a rise in the consumption tax, Ozawa left the DPJ along with 49 other lawmakers in July 2012. Later that month he formed the People's Life First (PLF) party, which became the third largest party in the lower house of the Japanese Parliament. The focus of the new party was to reduce Japan's reliance on nuclear power and to oppose the consumption tax increase. Shortly before the 2012 general election, Ozawa and the members of PLF merged with the newly founded Tomorrow Party of Japan of Shiga governor Yukiko Kada. The party went into the election with 12 members in the upper house and 61 in the lower house, but performed poorly, with only nine members in the lower house being re-elected. The upper house members were not up for re-election. Tensions grew within the party and on 29 December 2012 the Ozawa group split from the TPJ and formed the Life Party while suggesting continued corroboration between both parties. Tomoko Abe remained the only TPJ diet member, meaning that the TPJ could not maintain official party status in the diet, which requires five members. Abe and Kada sounded out Green Wind, which has four Diet members, over a possible merger, but the talks were not successful. After the Shiga prefectural assembly passed a resolution requesting Kada to stop doubling as governor and the head of the TPJ, she resigned as head of the party on 4 January 2013. Long after he last held an influential party