TOKYO: Japan's conservative opposition and its junior coalition partner appear headed for easy victory in this weekend's election, an opinion poll said on Friday, heralding a possible hardening of foreign policy.
In one of the last gauges of the public mood before Sunday's vote, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its ally looked set to achieve a possible two-thirds majority in the lower house ballot.
That would hand hawkish party leader Shinzo Abe a premiership with enough power to try to fulfil his campaign pledge - bolstering Japan's military and coastal defences at a time of heightened tensions with China.
On Thursday Japan scrambled fighter jets after a Chinese plane entered airspace over Japanese-held disputed islands. Tokyo said it was the first time a Chinese state-owned plane had breached its airspace.
The two nations have been at loggerheads for months over the uninhabited but strategically important islands in the East China Sea. Thursday's episode was seen as a racheting-up of those tensions.
Unveiling his party's manifesto last month, Abe said his putative government would consider establishing a permanent presence on the Senkaku islands, which Beijing calls the Diaoyus.
Although he stayed away during a brief stint as prime minister in 2006-7, as opposition leader earlier this year Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, the repository of millions of war dead including Class A war criminals.
Visits to the shrine by senior politicians rankle China and other victims of Japan's aggressive military expansionism last century.
Friday's poll by the liberal Asahi Shimbun newspaper showed the LDP on course for up to 297 of the 480 seats available, with junior partner New Komeito set to gain more than 30 seats.
If both parties achieve at the top of their forecast ranges they would have a more than two-thirds majority in the powerful lower house -- enough to override the upper house, which they do not control.
The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda will see its 230-strong presence diminished to somewhere between 63 and 88, the daily said, reflecting public displeasure at the ill-disciplined party.
The paper noted, however, that a significant portion of voters - about half for single-seat constituencies and 40 percent for proportional representation seats - have not yet decided which candidate or party to support.
Around 1,500 candidates, fielded by 12 parties or standing as independents, are vying for the 480 seats - 300 in single-seat constituencies and 180 allocated by proportional representation in 11 blocs.
- AFP/de
Last-minute polls tip victory for Japan hawks
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Last-minute polls tip victory for Japan hawks
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Last-minute polls tip victory for Japan hawks
