Most want Ozawa to quit: Poll

About 60 percent of Japanese voters want opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa to resign after the arrest of a senior aide in a funding scandal that has clouded his party's prospects in a looming election, two surveys showed yesterday.

But the scandal gave only a small boost to unpopular Prime Minister Taro Aso, and more voters still plan to back the opposition in the next election, the surveys showed.

A Mainichi newspaper poll showed 57 percent of respondents felt that Ozawa should step down as leader of the Democratic Party, while 33 percent said his resignation was unnecessary. The daily polled 1,032 respondents on Friday and Saturday.