Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi is almost certain to win re-election as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, easily defeating rivals Koichi Kato and Taku Yamasaki, in a vote by party members today.

Once Obuchi can claim a two-year term as LDP president, he is expected to accelerate talks for establishing a new tripartite coalition among the LDP, the Liberal Party and New Komeito, which together will account for a stable majority in both chambers of the Diet.

While the ballots of the party's rank-and-file members were due in by Monday's deadline, the LDP's Diet members will cast their votes from 4 p.m. today. The result is scheduled to be announced around 5 p.m., party officials said.

Obuchi is supported by many of the party's major factions, including his own, and is widely believed to have secured roughly 70 percent of the votes from the LDP's 371 Diet members.

The focus has now shifted to how many votes he has gathered from the party's rank-and-file. About 2.9 million party members throughout the country are eligible to vote, but a senior LDP lawmaker predicted that only about half of these people are believed to have mailed in their ballots by the deadline Monday.

For votes by non-Diet members, the election rules stipulate that each group of 10,000 votes sent in will be considered equivalent to one vote from a Diet member.

It is believed that Obuchi has obtained support from at least a majority of the rank-and-file members, but early media forecasts said their support for Obuchi may not be as strong as from Diet members.

The LDP's traditional support organizations, religious groups in particular, are said to be critical of Obuchi's plan to include in the ruling alliance New Komeito, which is backed by Soka Gakkai, the nation's largest lay Buddhist organization.

Kato, former LDP secretary general who now leads the party's second-largest faction, and Yamasaki, former LDP policy affairs chief and leader of the fifth-largest group, have openly criticized Obuchi's coalition plan during the campaign.