Liberal Democratic Party President Junichiro Koizumi was re-elected prime minister Wednesday by more than two-thirds of the 480-seat House of the Representatives on the opening day of a special Diet session, with supporting votes coming even from some of his LDP foes.
In the wake of the LDP's landslide victory in the Sept. 11 election, lawmakers from the LDP-New Komeito coalition in both the Lower House and the House of Councilors -- as well as some LDP members who opposed the government-sponsored postal privatization bills in the last Diet session -- voted for Koizumi, with 340 votes in the Lower House and 134 in the Upper House.
Seiji Maehara, the newly elected leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, received 114 votes from the lower chamber and 84 votes from the upper.