Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Sunday he will not step down even though the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is certain to fail to attain its target of 51 seats in Sunday's House of Councillors election.

According to TV Asahi's live report, the LDP has so far garnered 47 seats and its coalition ally, the New Komeito party, 10, while the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), with 41 seats up for grabs, has taken 50.

The LDP will miss its 51-seat target because there are only four seats left from the 121 seats in the upper house election, the television reported.

The results show that the ruling coalition parties will win more than a combined 50 seats to retain a comfortable majority with 129 seats overall, enough strength to pass bills through all the upper chamber's existing panels as well as the plenary session.

"There will be no issue of responsibility if the coalition takes a majority," Koizumi said in a televised interview. The premier also denied the possibility LDP Secretary General Shinzo Abe will resign.

But the LDP is certain not to achieve its target of retaining the 51 seats it had until early April, possibly making it more difficult for Koizumi to promote structural reforms he initiated more than three years ago.

DPJ President Katsuya Okada said in a separate interview his party is projected to make a large gain because of dissatisfaction with pension reform and the presence of Japanese troops in Iraq. "I think the public said 'No' to the pension issue and the participation in a multinational force by Japanese troops in Iraq," he said.

Koizumi also attributed his party's apparent failure to attain its target to the same factors.

With a promotion to 50 seats in the election, the largest opposition party seems to gain fresh impetus as one of Japan's two major parties under the new leader following its advances in last November's general election for the House of Representative.

The DPJ is expected to top the LDP and take the largest share of seats in the proportional representation section, taking 17 of the 41 seats whose party allocations became certain by midnight while the LDP had taken 13. Of the remaining proportional representation seats, six are seen certain to go to the New Komeito, three to the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), and two to the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

But the governing party is unlikely to replace Koizumi as its president, and hence prime minister, due in part to a lack of viable successors. The party has 50 seats up for grabs.

The New Komeito has reached its expectation to retain a 10-seattarget, allowing the coalition to maintain its majority in the 242-seat upper chamber.

As for candidates, economic and fiscal policy minister Heizo Takenaka is set to win a seat in the upper chamber, according to a Kyodo News projection. Takenaka, a former professor of economics at Keio University, ran for a seat in the proportional representation block on the LDP ticket.

Takenaka, chief architect of Koizumi's reform policies, said his victory was the result of high marks given to three years of structural reforms under the Koizumi administration and pledged toaccelerate them.

LDP upper house caucus leader Miko Aoki, SDP leader Mizuho Fukushima, New Komeito acting chief Toshiko Hamayotsu, JCP secretariat chief Tadayoshi Ichida, and former Environment Agency chief Wakako Hironaka of the DPJ are also among the projected winners.

Voter turnout is estimated at 56.02 percent, close to the finalturnout in 2001 of 56.44 percent in the constituency section, according to a Kyodo News projection.

A total of 320 candidates were vying for the 121 seats up for grabs in the 20th upper house election, with the recovering economy, the government's handling of pension reforms and its decision to have Japanese troops join a multinational force in Iraq being major issues.

Of the 121 seats, 48 are assigned to winning candidates on parties' proportional representation lists and 73 to the 47 prefectural constituencies.

The JCP, which aims to win at least 12 seats, is expected to retain less than one-third of its 15 seats up for grabs, while the SDP is forecast to hold on to its two seats. Both are known for their staunch opposition to revising Japan's pacifist Constitution but have lost strength in recent elections.

The 51-seat target of the LDP was seen as too modest only two months ago. It is below the 56 seats required for the party to regain its first upper house majority in 15 years. It has 66 seats that are not being contested this time due to its overwhelming victory in 2001.

However, the tide has since turned due to public frustration over reforms to the Japanese pension system and the deployment of Self-Defense Forces troops in Iraq, and major newspapers predicteda week ago the LDP would win less than 50 seats.

Koizumi, who took office in April 2001, plans to stay until thefall of 2006, when his tenure as LDP president expires.

The DPJ, which has taken advantage of public criticism of the government and the governing parties over the pension and Iraq issues, plans to demand the dissolution of the more powerful Houseof Representatives for a general election if it wins more seats than the LDP on Sunday.

The largest opposition party also plans to reinforce its calls for the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Iraq and the repeal of the pension reform legislation enacted in June.

The number of upper house seats will be trimmed by five after the election to 242. Half the chamber's seats are contested every three years, with each lawmaker serving a six-year term.

Source: Xinhua