Official campaigning for election kicks off in Japan

Official campaigning for the Sept. 11 general election kicked off Tuesday with voters being asked to choose between a government led by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's ruling coalition or one led by the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan.

Koizumi, DPJ President Katsuya Okada and other party leaders are set to deliver their first speeches on the streets in Tokyo and other places as the 12-day campaigning got under way for the House of Representatives election.

More than 1,130 candidates are expected to file their candidacies for the 480-seat lower chamber with election boards nationwide from 8:30 a.m. through 5 p.m. The figure is slightly below the 1,159 candidates in the previous election in November 2003.

Koizumi, who heads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, will make a speech in front of JR Kichijoji station in Tokyo -- the home to former DPJ President Naoto Kan -- in an apparent bid to highlight his resolve to beat the DPJ.

DPJ leader Okada and Takenori Kanzaki, head of the LDP's coalition partner, the New Komeito party, will speak in the Tokyo No. 12 district, which covers Kita Ward and western Adachi Ward, in which a New Komeito executive, Akihiro Ota, and ''rebel'' LDP member, Eita Yashiro, are set to stage a fierce battle.

Japanese Communist Party leader Kazuo Shii is to start his canvassing in front of JR Ikebukuro Station, while Social Democratic Party of Japan head Mizuho Fukushima is to do so in Okinawa and Tamisuke Watanuki of the newly formed People's New Party in his constituency in Toyama Prefecture.

For the single-seat districts, the LDP has named 290 candidates and the DPJ 289. As a result, the two major parties are set to fight it out in 280 of the 300 single-seat constituencies nationwide.

Coupled with candidates for the 180 proportional-representation seats for 11 regional blocks, the LDP will field 346 candidates, the DPJ 299, New Komeito 52, the Japanese Communist Party 292 and the Social Democratic Party 46.

Aside from the candidates being fielded by the five parties, 34 of the 37 LDP lower house member who voted against postal privatization bills will run as independents or members of the two tiny new parties -- the People's New Party and the New Party Nippon.

Koizumi dissolved the lower chamber to call the election on Aug. 8 as bills to privatize Japan Post -- the centerpiece of his policy agenda -- failed to clear the Diet with a larger-than-expected number of LDP members opposing them in the House of Councillors following their passage in the lower house in July.

Intent to resubmit the defeated bills to a Diet session to be held soon after the election, Koizumi's ruling coalition has picked proponents of postal privatization in all the single-seat districts, including New Komeito members and LDP candidates recruited to challenge the dissidents. The media has been referring to the candidates chosen to defeat the rebels as ''assassins.''

Koizumi has said he will serve until his LDP presidency expires in September next year. If his coalition wins a majority in the election, he will hand over leadership to someone who supports his reform agenda, he says.

Opposition leader Okada wants to wrest power from the LDP and form a DPJ-led government. He has pledged to slash state expenditures by 10 trillion yen in the first three years, pull Japanese troops out of Iraq by December and try to mend fences with China and South Korea.

Upon the chamber's dissolution, the LDP held 249 seats, its partner New Komeito 34, the DPJ 175, the Communists nine and the Social Democrats six.

Of the 37 rebels, seven have left the LDP to join the new parties, and three have given up running in the coming race, while the others have opted to run as independents.

The LDP has maintained its grip on Japan for the past 50 years, except for 11 months from July 1993. But the DPJ has been making inroads and in the 2003 election the opposition party did better than the LDP in proportional-representation votes.

Source: Agencies