Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi views the forthcoming general election, set for Sept. 11, as a national referendum on his top-priority plan to privatize the postal system. "I would like to ask the people whether they are for or against postal privatization," he told a nationally televised press conference, adding that he will resign if the governing coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito fails to win a majority.
More broadly, the snap Lower House election will be a vote on his structural reform efforts of the past four years and four months. The question at stake is whether the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) will snatch power from the LDP, or whether the poll will set off a turbulent era of political instability and party realignments.
The ballot brings to mind the 1993 general election in which a divided LDP lost its long-held majority. Once again, with the largest party openly split for the first time in 12 years, the future of Japanese politics seems to hang in the balance.