Japan opposition could win by a landslide: media
Friday, 21 August 2009
TOKYO, Aug 20 (Reuters): Japan's opposition Democratic Party may be headed for a landslide election victory, trouncing the conservative party that has ruled for most of the past half-century, a leading newspaper said Thursday.
The Democrats could win 300 of the 480 seats in parliament's lower house while the long-ruling Liberal Democrats may see their strength halved to around 150 seats, said the Asahi newspaper, based on a detailed survey of electoral districts ahead of the August 30 poll.
But the paper also said around 30 to 40 per cent of voters in its survey of electoral districts had not revealed how they would vote while 25 per cent might change their minds, so results could shift significantly in the final days.
Opinion polls have consistently shown the Democrats well ahead of the business-friendly Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), raising the prospect the LDP -- whose once-mighty political machine has been weakened by social and economic changes -- will lose power for only the second time in its 54-year history.
Democratic Party leader Yukio Hatoyama, now looking likely to become the next prime minister, has pledged to put more money into consumers' hands to revive the economy, hold off on raising the five per cent sales tax for four years and adopt a diplomatic stance less subservient to top security ally the United States.
A solid Democratic Party victory would end a deadlock in parliament, where the party and its allies already control the less powerful upper chamber.
The Democrats could win 300 of the 480 seats in parliament's lower house while the long-ruling Liberal Democrats may see their strength halved to around 150 seats, said the Asahi newspaper, based on a detailed survey of electoral districts ahead of the August 30 poll.
But the paper also said around 30 to 40 per cent of voters in its survey of electoral districts had not revealed how they would vote while 25 per cent might change their minds, so results could shift significantly in the final days.
Opinion polls have consistently shown the Democrats well ahead of the business-friendly Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), raising the prospect the LDP -- whose once-mighty political machine has been weakened by social and economic changes -- will lose power for only the second time in its 54-year history.
Democratic Party leader Yukio Hatoyama, now looking likely to become the next prime minister, has pledged to put more money into consumers' hands to revive the economy, hold off on raising the five per cent sales tax for four years and adopt a diplomatic stance less subservient to top security ally the United States.
A solid Democratic Party victory would end a deadlock in parliament, where the party and its allies already control the less powerful upper chamber.