Frontier Party in 1994. After joining the coalition, it became a catch-all party for the merger of several smaller parties. After a bitter leadership struggle in 1995, Ozawa took over the party, just as his old rival Ryutaro Hashimoto was assuming leadership of the LDP. Most commentators believed that a new Ichi-Ryu War would finally provide a genuinely competitive two-party system in Japanese politics. Under Ozawa, the NFP made the second-strongest showing in the 1996 general election. However, the New Frontier Party was already beginning to unravel. Ozawa's autocratic leadership style alienated many of his former allies, and even Tsutomu Hata, disillusioned after his leadership battle with Ozawa, seceded to form the Sun Party in 1996. By 1998, so many had abandoned Ozawa that he announced the dissolution of the New Frontier Party. Liberal Party (1998–2002) Upon the dissolution of the New Frontier Party, Ozawa took his remaining followers to found the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party formed a coalition with the LDP in 1999 to support Keizō Obuchi as prime minister. Obuchi began negotiating a future merger of the Liberal Party with the LDP. The idea of Ozawa returning was met with mixed reaction in the LDP. The YKK partnership of Taku Yamasaki, Junichiro Koizumi and Koichi Kato was strongly opposed to Ozawa, along with anti-reformer Hiromu Nonaka. Powerful faction leader Shizuka Kamei supported Ozawa, chiefly due to similar views on military reform. Eventually, Ozawa's enemies were successful in blocking the merger. Democratic Party of Japan (2002–2012) Shut out of the LDP, Ozawa and his party joined the Democratic Party of Japan prior to the 2003 general election, reuniting with his old ally Tsutomu Hata under DPJ president Naoto Kan. In 2004, Ozawa was affected by a pension scandal. Although cleared of any legal wrongdoing, he stepped down from the DPJ leadership elections, in which he had been unopposed. This forced Katsuya Okada to assume leadership of the party. Okada resigned after his party suffered dramatic losses against the increasingly popular Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in the September 2005 general election, and his successor Seiji Maehara resigned in April 2006. Ozawa was elected president again on 7 April. The Economist called Ozawa an "increasingly ineffectual bully" in July 2007 and partially blamed him both for enervating reformists in his own party and for DPJ failure to profit from LDP predicaments. Nonetheless, Ozawa led the party to its largest victory