Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's long-ruling party has won a landslide victory in election for parliament's lower house today, according TV exit polls showed.
The stunning win will tighten Mr Koizumi's grip on power and give him a broad mandate for his market-drive reforms which prompted the snap election.
An exit poll by public broadcaster NHK showed the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which leads the governing coalition, would win between 285 and 325 seats in the 480-seat chamber.
That represents a striking victory for Mr Koizumi, a media-savvy maverick who gambled his career in a populist appeal to voters to back his plan to privatise Japan's postal system, a financial services giant that includes a postal savings bank and insurance business with a combined $3 trillion in assets.
"We asked whether the public thinks Koizumi's structural reforms symbolised by privatisation of the three postal services should be pushed forward or stopped," said LDP executive Shinzo Abe after the exit poll results.
"I think we received wide support from the public on this point."
NHK, whose findings were in line with those of private broadcasters, also forecast that the LDP and its partner, the New Komeito party, would win a combined total of between 313 and 361 seats, allowing them to dominate the powerful lower chamber.
The leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, Katsuya Okada, said he would resign after his party's devastating defeat. "It is clear that we cannot form a Democratic Party government, therefore I will resign as party president and I would like the next leader to be chosen quickly," Mr Okada (52) told a news conference.
The heavy defeat is likely to raise concerns about the future of a two-party system, where the LDP has ruled for most of the past five decades.
The 63-year-old Koizumi, a telegenic veteran with an aptitude for punchy slogans but a mixed record on implementing change, called the election after LDP lawmakers helped the opposition defeat bills to privatise Japan Post in the upper house.
The shock decision to strip LDP rebels of party backing and send what media called "assassin" candidates to challenge the "traitors" grabbed the limelight, making the election as much a referendum on Mr Koizumi himself as on his policies.
The will please the US administration, where he is seen as a staunch ally in the attack on Iraq but there will be little cheering in China and South Korea. Ties with both neighbours, victims of Japan 's past militarism, have chilled since Mr Koizumi took office in 2001 due to perceptions of rising Japanese nationalism and regional rivalry.
Markets in Japan will welcome the electorate's endorsement Mr Koizumi's reform agenda.