Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi marked his third anniversary in office yesterday boosted by firm public support and a clean sweep for his ruling party in weekend by-elections.
"My policy of `no reform, no recovery' does not waver," Koizumi said in parliament after his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won all three seats contested in Sunday's ballots in the run-up to national polls in July.
"I am now convinced my reform policy was right," he said, arguing curbs on fiscal spending by the government had led to signs of emerging recovery by the Japanese economy.
PHOTO: APN
"I want to make these bright signs spread to regional cities and smaller companies [from major cities and giant corporations] by stepping up reforms," he said.
A weekend telephone poll of 1,000 adults by the TV Tokyo private network revealed strong support for Koizumi among voters.
About 53 percent of those questioned backed the premier, down from the sky-high 81 percent immediately after he took office but up from 45 percent after his first year in office.
Analysts have said the Koizumi administration escaped political disaster when five Japanese civilians taken hostage in Iraq this month were released unharmed.
Koizumi had refused the demands of Iraqi militants who had threatened to kill three of the hostages unless Tokyo withdrew its 550 soldiers in Iraq.
Although two of the three by-elections had been expected to be close, the LDP was spared a voter backlash either for sending troops to Iraq or for an ongoing battle over pension reform.
Instead the conservative party dealt a blow to the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) by holding onto all three seats in what were effectively two-way contests.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told reporters that "the results were very good for the ruling coalition."
In the Saitama constituency, just north of Tokyo, a first-time LDP candidate won with 45 percent of the votes cast, defeating a career politician from the DPJ by a margin of 5 percent.
The Saitama seat was considered the left-of-center opposition's best chance to draw blood as it had been vacated by an LDP lawmaker who stepped down in January following a vote-buying scandal last year.
In Hiroshima, western Japan, the ruling party was returned with 51 percent of the votes, while in Kagoshima, southern Japan, always a safe bet as an LDP stronghold, the ruling party cruised to victory with an 83 percent majority.
Voting was marked by record-low turnout in all three constituencies, at around 55 percent for Hiroshima and Kagoshima and 35 percent for Saitama.
The by-elections came just three months before July's nationwide poll for half the seats in the upper house.
Shigenori Okazaki, political analyst at UBS Securities Japan, said the clean sweep, helped by low turnout and votes mobilized by coalition partner New Komei party backed by lay Buddhists, augured well for the ruling party in the July polls.
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