Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi wound up campaigning yesterday for a key Upper House election, urging voters to give him the mandate he needs to forge ahead with an agenda of painful but vital economic reform.
"The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) now faces a challenge," Koizumi said in an open reference to doubts over whether his own long-ruling conservative party is really ready to back his reform platform.
"This election will test whether the LDP can support the Koizumi Cabinet and carry out bold reform," the hoarse-voiced, charismatic prime minister told a crowd of several thousand gathered to hear his final speech outside Tokyo's busiest train station in the Shinjuku shopping district.
Koizumi needs a respectable showing for the LDP to claim a popular mandate for his reforms of the long-stagnant economy, but a too-stunning victory could, ironically, strengthen the hand of old-guard LDP opponents to change.
The coalition needs to win 63 seats of the 121 up for grabs to keep a majority in the Upper House, whose membership will fall to 247 from 252 after this election.
Domestic media surveys suggested support for the LDP slipped a bit on the eve of the election but the LDP-led three-party ruling bloc still looked on track to keep its majority.
A survey by the Mainichi Shimbun showed support for the LDP had fallen slightly in the proportional representation section of the election, where 48 seats will be decided. Another 73 seats are from first-past-the-post electoral districts. A sample survey by the liberal Asahi Shimbun also showed some slippage in LDP support, but the party was still well ahead of its main opposition rival, the Democratic Party.
Fears the LDP might not do well enough to give Koizumi the mandate he needs were a factor in pushing down Tokyo share prices last week to near 16-year closing lows.
Koizumi leapt to power in April in a surprise victory over old-guard rivals with the support of LDP members desperate for a new image to avoid defeat in the Upper House election.
He appealed to the people in his last speech after a whistlestop tour on the last day of the campaign that took him from Sapporo on northern Hokkaido island to central Tokyo.
"To prove his ability, a prime minister must receive support from the people," Koizumi told the crowd, some wearing T-shirts printed with the face of the silvery-maned maverick and the slogan: "I want your support."
A bad showing today would not immediately end the ruling camp's reign, given its majority in the powerful Lower House.
Koizumi, however, needs a comfortable win to push on with reforms that could trigger bankruptcies and a surge in unemployment as well as to survive an LDP presidential election in September.
"No growth without reform," he told the crowd in Shinjuku.
The dashing prime minister's popularity has been dented a bit of late as voters ponder whether he can really push his reform agenda in the face of opposition from within the LDP and in the teeth of a deteriorating economy.
"I will change politics and I will change the LDP," he said to scattered cheers in his final speech of the campaign.
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