Nonetheless, Ozawa led the party to its largest victory in history in the upper house election on 29 July 2007. On 4 November 2007, Ozawa announced he would resign as leader of the DPJ, after a controversial proposal made by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda about a grand coalition between the DPJ and the ruling LDP. He brought the proposal to a meeting of the DPJ leadership, which rejected it. He faced criticism for failing to immediately reject the proposal. At a news conference, he said that he took responsibility for this political turmoil. He also said that he was not leaving the party. There was speculation that the proposal originally came from Ozawa. However, Ozawa denied the press speculation except the "Asahi Shimbun" and the "Nihon Keizai Shimbun", and he said that they manipulated public opinion. It was reported that the power broker of the proposal was Yomiuri Shimbun's executive director Tsuneo Watanabe. On 6 November 2007, he retracted his resignation offer after he was asked to stay on as leader by senior party officials and members.