Japan LDP still ahead, but Opposition edges higher

JAPANESE Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) held onto a hefty lead one week before elections, but its main rival edged higher with many voters still undecided, opinion polls showed yesterday.

Koizumi called the September 11 election after LDP rebels joined the opposition last month to vote down bills to privatise the postal system, a huge organisation with $3 trillion in assets that is at the centre of his reform agenda.

The unusually dramatic election, which includes Koizumi's dispatch of what the media is calling "assassins" against LDP "traitors", has grabbed the interest of Japan's often apathetic voters. Although the LDP remains strongly ahead, with 42.2 per cent of voters saying they support it compared to 18.5 per cent for the largest opposition Democratic Party, the Democrats are starting to narrow the gap, a poll by the daily Yomiuri Shimbun showed.

Koizumi has said that 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 made a similar promise if his party cannot take power. The poll was held over three days after campaigning began on Tuesday and involved 2,036 voters. A total of 37.9 per cent of voters said they would vote for the LDP in single-seat districts, down from 39.2 percent in a mid-August poll.

In contrast, the number of voters who said they would vote for the Democratic Party in the same districts rose to 19.2 per cent from 14.1 per cent.

Support in proportional representation districts - where people vote for the party, not for individual candidates - shifted in a similar way, with the LDP losing ground slightly while the Democrats edged higher.

However, the two parties were neck and neck among uncommitted "floating voters", those who support no particular political party and are seen by many experts as key to the final election results, with an even 12 per cent supporting both the LDP and the Democrats for single-seat districts.

With 60 per cent of these voters undecided, however, their movements could prove decisive. A similar survey by the Asahi Shimbun found that 80 per cent of floating voters had yet to make up their minds.