Japanese Environment Minister Yuriko Koike said Wednesday she will run in the upcoming general election as a Liberal Democratic Party candidate in a Tokyo constituency in which she will fight an LDP colleague who voted against key postal privatization bills.

Her plan marks the beginning of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's purge through the House of Representatives election on Sept. 11 of the 37 members of his own party who last month voted against his priority bills to privatize Japan Post.

Koike formally announced her plan to run in LDP member Koki Kobayashi's Tokyo No. 10 constituency in a press conference in Hyogo Prefecture, where she had earlier planned to run.

Koike told reporters earlier Wednesday the LDP leadership has sounded her out about the possibility of running in the Tokyo district. She was elected in the proportional representation section in western Japan in the previous lower house general election in November 2003.

''Voters would want to have a choice of candidates on the postal bills issue,'' said Koike, who backed the bills. Koizumi welcomed her plan, describing it as ''courageous.''

But Kobayashi criticized Koizumi over the move to field Koike in his constituency, claiming he would be like a prisoner in ancient Rome forced to fight a beast simply for the emperor's pleasure.

Kobayashi, whose single-seat constituency encompasses Tokyo's Toshima Ward and part of Nerima Ward, belongs to an LDP faction led by Shizuka Kamei, a former chairman of the LDP Policy Research Council who was staunchly opposed to Koizumi's bills.

Koizumi the same day expressed confidence that the ruling coalition can field rival candidates who support postal privatization in all the home constituencies of those LDP opponents of the bills.

''This is an election about whether the public support or oppose postal privatization, and it would not be good for them if there is no proponent'' in any constituency, Koizumi told reporters at his office.

But Koizumi ruled out asking postal privatization minister Heizo Takenaka to run in the contest, saying, ''Mr. Takenaka is already a House of Councillors member.''

Takenaka dismissed a newspaper report that he would pit himself against the opponents' leader Kamei in his Hiroshima constituency, a move that would have been more symbolic of the postal row if realized than Koike's.

''There has been no request and I myself have never considered it,'' said Takenaka, who has led the fleshing out of Koizumi's privatization initiative since assuming his newly created second title last September.

Having served as economic and fiscal policy minister since the start of Koizumi's administration in April 2001, Takenaka switched from academia to politics by winning a seat in the upper house election in July last year.

Koizumi, meanwhile, said he has agreed to run in the upcoming election in both a single-seat constituency and a proportional representation block in a tactic he had refused before but which would help expand the LDP's support base.

Koizumi dissolved the House of Representatives on Monday for a general election after the bills -- the centerpiece of his reform agenda -- were voted down by the House of Councillors as some lawmakers from Koizumi's ruling party cast dissenting votes.

He said shortly afterward that the LDP would not let members who opposed the bills run on the party ticket in the election and that it would field alternative candidates in their place.

Kamei and some of his fellow lawmakers had indicated a plan to break away from the LDP to set up a new party, but the opponents' group abandoned the idea Tuesday as many members think they may have a better chance of winning if they run as independents, they said.

In another attempt to drive the opponents from the chamber, one LDP executive said the party has asked a member who won in the proportional representation section in the previous lower house election to run in the Tokushima No. 2 constituency, home to Shunichi Yamaguchi, an opponent who belongs to no LDP faction.

There have been such moves ''here and there,'' the executive said.

Among the 14 LDP members who were absent or abstained from voting, LDP Secretary General Tsutomu Takebe accepted the same day a local request that Naoto Kitamura run in his Hokkaido district on the LDP ticket on the grounds that his support of the privatization policy has been confirmed.

The party leadership plans to allow similar treatment if the 13 others who did not vote also express their support for the policy.

Source: Agencies