Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi?s party looked set to fall short of its target of winning 51 seats in yesterday?s upper house election, most TV exit polls forecast, a showing that would weaken Koizumi?s clout and could even lead to calls for him to resign. Private TV broadcasters forecast that Koizumi?s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) would win between 46 and 48 of the 121 seats at stake, while public broadcaster NHK gave a range of 43 to 52 for the party.

The main opposition Democrats looked on track to outperform the dominant ruling party, the exit polls showed, winning up to 53 seats.

Koizumi?s ruling coalition cannot be ousted as a result of the election for Parliament?s upper house, as it holds a majority in the powerful lower chamber. A weak showing would undermine the maverick Koizumi?s influence inside his conservative party and could possibly force him to step down. Analysts had said, however, that Koizumi was likely to stay on as long as the LDP won more than 44 seats.

?It?s not a defeat for the LDP?, said Columbia University professor Gerald Curtis. Many voters opposed Japan?s dispatch of some 550 non-combat troops to Iraq and were also upset with government reforms to the creaking state pension system that will cut benefits and raise premiums.

?We wanted to exceed 51 seats by even one or two, but it seems difficult?, said senior LDP official Nobutaka Machimura. Koizumi sprang to power in 2001 promising to abandon the wasteful public spending that inflated Japan?s government debt and privatise debt-laden public corporations and postal services.

Most economists say his record has been patchy but question if the Democrats would do any better. While the LDP and the Democrats do not differ radically on many policies, some voters want change to revive democracy after LDP rule for most of the past half-century. ?It?s not that the Democratic Party is good, but I decided not to vote for the LDP this time?, said Hiroshi Furuya, 64, the owner of a construction company, who voted for the Democrats.

Financial markets have been worried a weak LDP showing could hamper Koizumi?s economic reforms. The LDP had hoped to capitalise on Japan?s long-awaited economic recovery to win a vote of confidence and enlisted Economics Minister Heizo Takenaka, an academic drafted to the cabinet who helped to draft Koizumi?s reforms, to run on its ticket.

The upper chamber has 242 seats and half are contested every three years. All the parties, including LDP coalition partner the Buddhist-backed New Komeito, the small Communist Party and the tiny Social Democrats, have been fighting a common enemy: voter apathy. The LDP and New Komeito together were set to keep their majority, but the LDP would not win the 56 seats it needed to obtain an outright majority without its coalition partner, the exit polls predicted.

The Democrats promised to scrap the unpopular pensions reforms, and want Japanese soldiers brought home from Iraq until security there improves and an elected government is put in place.

<B>Linda Sieg</B>