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Campaigning Starts in Japan for July 29 Upper House Election
Campaigning began Thursday in Japan for the July 29 House of Councillors election, the first nationwide poll since Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took office in late April.
In the morning, 496 candidates had registered to vie for the 121 seats up for election in the upper chamber. Candidate registration began at 8:30 a.m., and will close at 5 p.m.
The focus of the race is whether Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its two coalition partners -- the New Komeito party and the New Conservative Party -- can win enough seats to maintain a combined majority in the upper house.
Koizumi says a good showing by the ruling bloc would give him a mandate to push ahead with painful but necessary reforms of the nation's long-struggling economy and hidebound political sphere.
''The Koizumi cabinet is trying to do what the opposition has been unable to do, that is, inserting the surgical knife of reform,'' Koizumi said in his first pitch for the LDP in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
''If the LDP is able to secure a victory, I will carry out those reforms,'' he said.
Even if the ruling bloc fares badly in the upcoming election, it will not immediately lose its grip on power since it has a majority in the more powerful House of Representatives.
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