Leaders of the ruling and opposition camps made their final pleas for votes Saturday, the last day of the 17-day campaign for Sunday's Upper House election.
"This is an election to decide whether we boost the economy or we return to an era of economic doldrums like the 1990s," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who heads the dominant but struggling Liberal Democratic Party, said in a stumping speech in Tokyo's Omote-sando district.
Abe pressed his case as media polls predict a serious setback for the LDP-led ruling bloc in the poll, with his popularity eroding amid growing public frustration over the pension record-keeping fiasco, political funds scandals and gaffes by Cabinet members.