TOKYO: Candidates in Japan’s super-tight parliamentary election will make last-ditch appeals to voters on Saturday, with opinion polls suggesting the ruling coalition might fall short of a majority.

Such an outcome would be the worst result for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 2009 and potentially a knockout blow to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, analysts say.

Ishiba — a fan of trains, 1970s pop idols and making model ships and planes — only last month took the helm of the LDP, which has governed Japan for almost all of the past seven decades.

After a tough internal contest, the 67-year-old became premier on October 1.

Days later, he called snap elections for October 27, promising a “new Japan”.

Ishiba pledged to revitalise depressed rural regions and to address the “quiet emergency” of Japan’s falling population by supporting families with policies such as flexible working hours.

But he has since rowed back his position on issues including allowing married couples to take separate surnames.

He also named only two women ministers in his cabinet.

A new poll on Friday by the Yomiuri Shimbun daily suggested that the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito might struggle to get the 233 lower house seats needed for a majority.

Ishiba has set this threshold as his objective, and missing it would undermine his position in the LDP and mean finding other coalition partners or leading a minority government.

Predictions are emerging that depending on how disastrously the coalition performs, Ishiba could resign immediately to take responsibility, making him the shortest-serving prime minister in Japan’s post-war history.

“The situation is extremely severe. The race is so tight that whether the LDP and Komeito can retain a majority together is uncertain,” Ishiba said on the stump Friday, according to the Yomiuri daily.

In many districts LDP candidates are in neck-and-neck battles with those of the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) — the second-biggest in parliament — led by popular former prime minister Yoshihiko Noda.

Noda’s stance “is sort of similar to the LDP’s. He is basically a conservative,” Masato Kamikubo, a political scientist at Ritsumeikan University, told AFP.

“The CDP or Noda can be an alternative to the LDP. Many voters think so,” Kamikubo said.

AFP