Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said on Tuesday he will not run in the next lower house election, showing his disagreement with the Democratic Party leadership’s policies of raising the consumption tax and joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks.

The newly-formed Sunrise Party merged with the Japan Restoration Party on Saturday, a day after Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda dissolved the Lower House for a snap general election on Dec. 16.

Former Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara on Tuesday launched a new political party named “the Sunrise Party” along with five lawmakers, vowing to form a “third force” before the next general election.

CIA Director David Petraeus resigned on Friday, just three days after President Obama’s re-election, over an extramarital affair with a woman an FBI investigation identified as his biographer Paula Broadwell.

US President Barack Obama was reelected on Tuesday as he swept most battleground states to beat Republican challenger Mitt Romney in a race that was not as close as many experts had predicted.