Yasuo Fukuda is set for a decisive victory in the race to become Japan's prime minister, surveys showed yesterday, as the two candidates to succeed Shinzo Abe prepared their final pitches to party faithful.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will pick a new president today hoping to revive its fortunes after a year marked by scandals, an election rout and a leadership crisis sparked by Abe's September 12 decision to resign.

The winning candidate needs a majority, or 265, of 528 votes comprising 387 LDP members of parliament and three representatives from each of the party's 47 prefectural chapters.

A survey by the liberal Asahi newspaper showed that Fukuda was expected to secure more than 60 percent of the votes from the lawmakers and a majority of votes from the local chapters. A poll by the conservative Sankei newspaper also put Fukuda, 71, far ahead of hawkish former foreign minister Taro Aso, with more than 70 per cent votes from the lawmakers and about half of the votes from the chapters.

In a last-ditch effort, Aso, a fan of "manga" comic books who stresses that Japan needs a strong leader, called on the Japanese to urge their lawmakers to vote for him.

"Although I am said to be inferior (to Fukuda), I want you to tell the parliamentarians about your views directly," Aso, 67, told voters in the northern city of Sendai.

The leadership race winner is guaranteed to become prime minister by virtue of the ruling coalition's huge majority in parliament's powerful lower house.

The winner will formally become prime minister on Tuesday after a parliamentary vote. But the next leader faces the daunting task of dealing with a sharply divided parliament, where combative opposition parties control the upper house.