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Japan vote expected to bring seismic political change
AFP - Sunday, August 30
TOKYO (AFP) - - Japanese voters headed to the polls on Sunday for a landmark election in which an untested centre-left party is expected to end more than half a century of almost unbroken conservative rule.
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The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), led by Yukio Hatoyama, is set to romp to a landslide win, taking more than 300 seats in the 480-seat lower house of parliament, national media polls have predicted.
Hatoyama, 62, would replace embattled Prime Minister Taro Aso, whose Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has borne the brunt of voter frustration as the gobal downturn plunged Japan into its worst post-war recession.
Although the world's number two economy returned to modest growth in the second quarter, the latest set of bleak numbers last week showed unemployment hit a record high of 5.7 percent in July.
Hatoyama, a US-trained engineering scholar and scion of an old political dynasty, has campaigned on a promise of change and people-centred politics against the business-friendly LDP, headed by fellow political blueblood Aso.
The DPJ already controls the upper house with the support of smaller parties, including the Social Democrats. A two-thirds majority in the lower house would give the party carte blanche to push through legislation.
Voter turnout was expected to be high, despite a tropical storm heading towards Japan on Sunday. About 10 percent of Japan's more than 100 million eligible voters had cast early ballots by Saturday, a new record.
Voting booths opened at 7:00 am (2200 GMT Saturday) and close at 8:00 pm, with media exit polls expected shortly afterwards.
In full-page DPJ advertisements published in major dailies on Sunday, the party confidently predicted: "Today, a government change."
"A courageous decision by the people will open the door for a historic and major event," it said in a separate statement. "Please join in this big task to change Japan and protect the people's lives."
The DPJ has promised better social welfare which it says would help recession-hit families, boost domestic demand and raise the birth rate to reverse a projected decline of Japan's fast-greying population.
In foreign policy, it has signalled a solid but less subservient partnership with traditional ally the United States and a desire to boost its regional ties and promote a European Union-style Asian community and common currency.
Hatoyama as premier would likely attend a UN assembly in New York and a G20 summit in Pittsburgh in September and seek talks with US President Barack Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao and other world leaders.
The ruling LDP is credited with guiding Japan through its post-war "economic miracle," but is also blamed for the economic malaise that set in in the 1990s and for free-market policies seen by many to have widened social inequality.
Aso has portrayed the LDP as the safe choice in guarding Japan's security and prosperity and points to stimulus measures that helped end the recession.
In its own full-page advertisements Sunday, the LDP urged voters: "Don't destroy Japan" and said: "Hope tomorrow can only come from stability today."
But for months, polls have indicated the political tide has turned against the party of Aso, 68, who has dismayed voters with a series of gaffes and policy turnarounds as divisions have publicly widened within his party.
While polls and pundits predict a DPJ victory, experts have also cautioned that up to a third of voters remained undecided in recent surveys, and that the electorate, long averse to change, still harbours doubts about the DPJ.
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