With an election just days away, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi looks headed for a victory that will give the staunch U.S. ally a firmer grip on his fractious party and provide impetus to efforts to reduce the government's role in the world's second-biggest economy. If opinion polls prove correct, the outcome of Sunday's lower house election will be cheered in Washington and welcomed by investors eager to see economic reforms stay on track. But there will be little applause in China and South Korea. Japan's ties with both countries have deteriorated during Koizumi's four years in office, mainly because of his visits to Yasukuni shrine for war dead, where war criminals are among those honoured, and perceptions of rising Japanese nationalism.Media surveys predict Koizumi's two-party ruling bloc will win a comfortable or overwhelming majority. His long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party could even take a majority on its own in parliament's lower house for the first time since 1990. That would be a striking victory for Koizumi -- not only over the opposition Democratic Party, which also preaches reform, but over old guard LDP rivals who consider funnelling benefits to the hinterlands and special interest groups to be their main job. "In terms of changing the LDP, I think Koizumi has done an awfully good job," said Steven Reed, a political scientist at Chuo University. "He's getting straight A's."
Koizumi, who sprang to power in 2001 promising to change the hide-bound party that has ruled Japan for most of the past half century, has gotten mixed reviews for his economic reforms. Banks have shed their huge bad loans and public works spending declined, but government debt has grown to 150 percent of gross domestic product, the highest among advanced nations.