Tokyo: Japan`s top political leaders took their appeals directly to the voters across the country on Friday ahead of crucial Parliamentary Elections that polls suggest the opposition could win in a landslide, breaking the ruling party`s nearly 54-year grip on power.
Prime Minister Taro Aso, whose ruling Liberal Democratic Party is seen as an underdog in Sunday`s elections for the powerful Lower House of Parliament, called on voters to stick with his party, saying it needs more time for economic reforms aimed at pulling the country out of one of its worst slowdowns since World War II.
"Please give us your support so that our government can accomplish our economic measures," he told a crowd in the hot springs resort city of Beppu, in southern Japan. "There are signs of recovery, but we are still halfway through."
Even as he made his appeal, he took another heavy hit with the government announcing that Japan`s unemployment rose to an all-time high in July, deflation intensified and families cut spending. The jobless rate hit a seasonally adjusted 5.7 percent, the highest level in Japan`s post-World War II era and worsening from 5.4 percent in June, the government said.
Meanwhile, rival Yukio Hatoyama, who heads the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, addressed followers on the island of Shikoku. He urged voters to support change and said they face a historic choice — a mantra he has repeated throughout the two-week campaign and which appears to be paying off.
According to a poll released on Friday, the Democrats were keeping their momentum going into the final days.
The survey by the Mainichi, a major newspaper, found 39 percent of respondents said they support the Democratic Party of Japan, an increase of three percentage points from a similar poll it conducted last month.
Support for Aso`s ruling party came in at just 20 percent, the Mainichi said.
The Liberal Democrats have governed Japan since 1955 with the exception of one period of less than a year in 1993-1994. They had 300 of the 480 seats in the Lower House before the elections. But several polls have projected the number could plummet to 100.
The Mainichi said Hatoyama`s party is likely to win more than 320 seats, sharply higher than the 112 seats it held before Parliament was dissolved in July.
If the opposition party wins, Hatoyama will almost certainly be named Japan`s next prime minister in a special session of Parliament, which could come in mid-September.
During the campaign, the 62-year-old opposition leader appealed to voters with promises that he would cut wasteful government spending, rein in the power of the bureaucracy and put more money in consumers` pockets by holding off tax hikes that the ruling party has said are in the works.
On Japan`s diplomacy, Hatoyama said he wants Japan to be more independent from the United States, Tokyo`s key trading partner and military ally.
But Hatoyama, who holds a doctorate in engineering from Stanford University, insists he will not seek radical change in Japan`s foreign policy, saying the U.S.-Japan alliance would "continue to be the cornerstone of Japanese diplomatic policy”.
The Mainichi survey involved randomly polling 1,713 eligible voters by telephone from Wednesday to Thursday, receiving responses from 1,026 people. The newspaper did not give a margin of error, but a poll of that size would normally have a margin of error of about five percentage points.
The poll was in line with several others by major media outlets over the past month that suggests the Democrats will win a two-thirds majority in the lower house.
Bureau Report
