Voters head for the polls in Japan

TOKYO, Japan -- Voters began casting their ballots on Sunday for an Upper House election that will determine whether Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi wins a mandate for his agenda of painful but vital economic reform.

"This election will test whether the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) can support the Koizumi cabinet and carry out bold reform," Koizumi said.

In his final campaign speech on Saturday, he openly referred to doubts over whether his own long-ruling conservative party is really ready to back his reform platform.

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"The LDP now faces a challenge," the charismatic prime minister told a crowd of several thousand gathered to hear his last speech outside Tokyo's busiest train station in the Shinjuku shopping district.

The prime minister's popularity has been dented as voters ponder whether he can really push his reform agenda despite opposition from within his party and a deteriorating economy.

Campaigning on the last day before the key Upper House election, Koizumi urged voters to give him the mandate for change to end Japan's 11-year slowdown.

The 59-year-old leader's promises to turn his back on special interests favored by decades of conservative governments have made him Japan's most popular leader in years.

But they have also made enemies within his LDP, and at campaign stops he reiterated his determination to do battle with all opponents to what he has dubbed "reform without sanctuary."

"I won't allow anybody in this party to say that I'm not needed after the election is over," he said Saturday on the northern island of Hokkaido. "We have to push through reform.

"This election will test whether the LDP can support the Koizumi cabinet and carry out bold reform," he told a large crowd gathered in the city of Sapporo.

Slight slip

While Koizumi needs a respectable showing for the LDP to claim a popular mandate for his reforms of the long-stagnant economy, a too-stunning victory could strengthen the hand of old-guard LDP opponents to change.

Pollsters predict that Koizumi's popularity will help the LDP and its two coalition partners win some 75 of the 121 seats up for grabs.

But fears that restructuring at corporations and changes in lending practices will lead to a rise in unemployment -- already at a postwar record 4.9 percent -- have alienated some voters.

The coalition needs 63 seats to keep its majority in the upper house, where half of the seats are contested every three years.

Koizumi leapt to power in April in a surprise victory over old-guard rivals with the support of LDP members desperate for a new image to avoid defeat in the Upper House election.

Respectable win

Leader of the Democratic Party, Yukio Hatoyama, campaigning Saturday

A bad showing on Sunday would not immediately end the ruling camp's reign, given its majority in the powerful Lower House.

Koizumi, however, needs a respectable win to push on with reforms and to survive an LDP presidential election in September.

Koizumi's charm and aptitude for soundbites suffered a blow as campaigning drew to a close.

On Friday, most media reported a gaffe by the prime minister reminiscent of those by his unpopular predecessor, Yoshiro Mori.

"Even beggars can read. They read newspapers. Even the homeless," media quoted Koizumi as saying on Thursday in a speech in Oita city on southern Kyushu island.

Homeless protest

A group of homeless and their representatives gathered outside the prime minister's office in central Tokyo on Friday to protest, demanding Koizumi apologise for using what they said was a derogatory term.

The extent to which Koizumi's popularity -- still sky-high at just under 70 percent -- will translate into votes for the LDP has been a tough question all along, given the party's image as scandal-tainted and bound by old-style vested interests.

The main opposition Democratic Party, which shares much of Koizumi's public fervor for reform, has been trying to mobilize voters' doubts to offset Koizumi's luster.

Koizumi has also given himself a diplomatic headache with a promise to pay homage to Japan's war dead at Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where World War Two war criminals are also enshrined.

China and South Korea, victims of Japan's wartime aggression, are urging Koizumi to call off the visit, planned for the August 15 anniversary of Japan's defeat in World War Two.

On Thursday, Koizumi's foreign minister, Makiko Tanaka, said she would ask him to abandon the trip.

Under a reform program, the upper house is being cut from 252 seats to 247. Another five seats will be cut in 2004. Candidates are elected for six-year terms.

Koizumi, a lower house member, is not up for election. Candidates are barred from campaigning after 8 p.m. Saturday.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.