Japan: "Throw the Aso out of office"

Japan election: Opposition set for victory, PM quits as party head

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso announced his resignation as head of the party that has governed Japan for decades following its apparent landslide defeat in elections Sunday.

Japan's voters, fed up with the party that has governed the country for decades, gave the opposition an enormous landslide victory in parliamentary elections Sunday, exit polls suggest.

The polls indicate the Democratic Party of Japan (DJP) may have won a 3-to-1 victory over the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Aso congratulated the DPJ in a televised appearance as the country waited for official results.

Yukio Hatoyama, the DJP leader, was restrained in his first public comments since the vote.

"I hope this victory will be for the people of Japan," said the man who is poised to be Japan's next prime minister.

Hatoyama, who has been touting an Obama-style message of change, was mobbed at street rallies by supporters during the campaign -- the kind of support the opposition has never seen before.

He pledged to raise the minimum wage and discourage hiring through agencies or on temporary contracts.

That message is gaining traction in a country that is witnessing historic highs in unemployment and experiencing ramifications like homelessness for the first time.

Voters at polling stations told CNN they wanted change and wanted to give new leaders a chance, even if they were not sure what policies would replace the ones that have run the world's second-largest economy for more than a generation. [...]

I suspect that the outgoing "liberal democratic" party is the more conservative party, while the democratic party is the more socialist party. I can only wonder if their new "Obama style" leader will amass huge mega deficits too? We'll see.