JAPAN: Japan's main opposition party could make a strong showing in next Sunday's election for the upper house of the Diet, latest opinion polls show.
The polls, reported in three newspapers, are a sign that the electorate is ready to ignore the Democratic Party of Japan's (DPJ) involvement in a pensions-related scandal that led to the resignation of its leader earlier this year, and continues to regard the party as a credible alternative to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
The election will decide 121 of the 242 seats in the upper house but will not lead to a transfer of power away from the LDP or threaten the position of Mr Junichiro Koizumi, the Prime Minister.
However, a strong showing by the DPJ would send a message to the LDP, at a time when the economy is recovering, that the electorate will be demanding more than economic growth at the next general election, to be held before the end of 2007.
A DPJ spokesman said yesterday the poll by Japan's Nikkei business newspaper was a "promising sign" that the electorate was starting to demand more accountability from the LDP, which has benefited from creating Japan's economic miracle during the 1970s but has not been penalised by voters for the country's decline over the last 14 years.
The key number at next weekend's elections is 51. The LDP has stated that it expects to win 51 of the 121 seats being contested, while the latest poll reveals it may fall short of this target and that the DPJ may exceed it.
The outcome of the election will depend largely on the most potent force in Japanese politics, the mutohaso, or floating voters - people who feel alienated from both main parties and only decide which one to support days or hours before voting.
In previous elections, mutohaso have accounted for around 40 per cent of the electorate, a figure backed by a poll released yesterday by the Asahi newspaper which said two of every five voters remained undecided.
Despite the DPJ's faith in the maturing demands of the electorate, the recent recovery in Japan's economy could secure the support of the mutohaso for the LDP.
Despite their apparent apathy, floating voters have generally supported the LDP, which has been deposed from power just once - for nine months - since the end of the occupation of Japan in 1952.