国际英语新闻：Japan's ruling party leadership race officially starts

Ozawa, who is under investigation for his role in a campaign- finance scandal, is a former party leader and its top election strategist. Kan met with Ozawa on Tuesday and declined to promise to give Cabinet or party posts to his supporters as a means to guarantee cooperation from his opponent.

However at Wednesday's news conference the pair maintained that they are clearly agreed that the possibility of a split in the ruling DPJ is out of the question regardless of the result of the election.

"Several people have proposed personnel matters, but I told them we shouldn't have such back-door discussions right now," Kan told reporters.

"We agreed to fight the election and once it's over to continue to cooperate."

Opinion polls indicate that Kan is ahead of Ozawa by about four- to-one, although the former DPJ secretary general commands the direct support of 150 lawmakers and a further 60 from former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's intraparty group.

Hatoyama, having first pledged to support Kan, reversed his decision in favor of Ozawa, a 68-year old powerbroker, known for his back room dealings and embroilment in political funds scandals, but also largely credited with crafting the election campaign which saw the DPJ oust the then ruling Liberal Democratic Party ( LDP), in an historic victory last summer.

For his part Kan has so far been backed by about 70 DPJ lawmakers belonging to a group headed either by Transport Minister Seiji Maehara or Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda, in addition to his own intraparty group of about 50 lawmakers.