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Japan's Ruling Coalition Likely to Gain Stable Majority: Polls
Japan's ruling three-way coalition led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is likely to gain a stable majority of 254 seats in Sunday's House of Representatives general election, newspaper polls indicated Tuesday.
The Asahi Shimbun said the LDP alone could win more than 254 seats and as many as 270 of the 480 seats up for grabs.
The LDP's two coalition partners, the New Komeito party and the New Conservative Party, could lose substantially in Sunday's balloting, but the coalition would still win about 300 seats, the daily said.
The poll conducted by Mainichi Shimbun projected 263 seats, plus 11 or minus 12 seats, for the LDP, and more than 300 for the coalition.
The Yomiuri Shimbun and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said their surveys showed the LDP alone may be able to secure a simple majority of 241 seats.
While predicting a bright future for the coalition, the four major dailies also pointed out that the outcome of the election is still uncertain as there is a high percentage of undecided voters. Japan's lower house will be trimmed by 20 seats in the election, scheduled for June 25. Of the 480 being contested, 300 seats will be from single-seat constituencies and 180 will be proportional- representation seats.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori told reporters earlier in the day that it was too early to say whether the election results will be good or bad for the LDP and its coalition partners.
But Mori said voter response to the election campaign is "very good," and that public interest in the election is high.
"There are big crowds at campaign speeches everywhere. It is the first time for me to experience an election campaign with such a good voter response," Mori said.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Mikio Aoki said he expects the ruling coalition will do well if the trend in the polls remains as it is.
"But there are five days to the election, so we will continue with our fight without relaxing our guard," the top government spokesman told a press conference.
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