Meeting earlier this month with mostly silver-haired voters in the rural town of Kumakogen, veteran lawmaker Katsutsugu Sekiya of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party was fighting for his political life.

Here in Ehime Prefecture, a provincial Shikoku prefecture once deemed a bastion of LDP conservatism, the 69-year-old Sekiya is struggling to retain his House of Councilors seat against Toshiro Tomochika, a 32-year-old former J. League soccer player backed by the Democratic Party of Japan.

The former construction minister sees the July 29 election as the toughest battle he has ever faced in a political career spanning more than three decades.