The four hopefuls in the race to replace Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori remained divided Sunday over their prescriptions for Japan's diseased economy.

With a little over a week to go before the Liberal Democratic Party's April 24 presidential election, which will virtually decide the next prime minister, the four stepped up their verbal sparring over the campaign's main issue: the economy.

During a televised debate, former health minister Junichiro Koizumi, 59, asserted the need to quickly reduce the nation's towering debt and attacked the spending plans of his rivals.