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Japan LDP top in poll as election campaign starts

Posted on: Monday, 29 August 2005, 20:51 CDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - The ruling party of Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had nearly twice the support of its main opposition rival as campaigning for a general election began on Tuesday, an opinion poll showed.

Koizumi called the September 11 election, which he has said is a referendum on reform, after rebels in his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) joined the opposition this month to vote down bills to privatize the postal system, the core of his reform agenda.

The unusually dramatic campaign, in which Koizumi has been cast by media as a feudal lord sending "assassins" to stand as candidates against "traitors" from his own party, has prompted strong interest among Japan's usually apathetic voters.

The poll published on Tuesday by the Tokyo Shimbun, covering 3,600 voters across the nation, found 43.4 percent intend to vote for the LDP in single-seat districts, roughly the same percentage as those who actually did vote for the party in the last general election in 2003.

In that election, while the coalition government held onto power, the LDP fell short of a simple majority of 241 seats in the 480-seat lower house.

The party regained a majority only after several independents joined and it absorbed its smallest coalition partner.

According to the Tokyo Shimbun survey, only 23.4 percent said they would vote for the main opposition Democratic Party in single-seat districts, down more than 13 points from the number who did so in 2003.

Some 40.9 percent said they would vote for the LDP in proportional representation districts, up from 35.0 percent in the 2003 election, while 24.2 percent said they would vote for the Democrats, also down more than 13 points from 2003.

Around 10 percent of voters surveyed were undecided.

Single-member districts return 300 seats, which go to the candidate with the most votes. The remaining 180 seats are for proportional representation districts from 11 regional blocks in which voters choose either a candidate or a party.

Koizumi has said he will resign if the LDP and its coalition partner, the New Komeito, fail to win a majority. Katsuya Okada, the leader of the Democrats, has also vowed to quit if his party cannot take power.

Asked what sort of government they wanted, 51 percent favored a government centered on the LDP against 34.8 percent for one centered on the Democrats.

Most opinion polls published prior to the start of campaigning have shown the LDP with a wide lead, although two over the weekend said support for the Democrats had risen slightly, especially among "floating" voters, or those uncommitted to any particular party.

The LDP, which has ruled alone or in a coalition for most of the past half century, had 249 seats in the chamber before it was dissolved, while the Democrats had 175.

But the LDP refused to recognize as official candidates 37 incumbents who voted against Koizumi's bills to privatize the huge postal system, a vast financial entity including savings and insurance businesses with $3 trillion in assets, which has long been a source of funds for wasteful public works projects.

Source: REUTERS

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