Party leaders stump for votes on last day of election campaign

TOKYO, Aug. 29 Kyodo -
Prime Minister Taro Aso, opposition leader Yukio Hatoyama and other party
leaders made their final pleas for voter support on the eve of Sunday's closely
watched general election in which Japan may see a change of power for only the
second time since 1955.
''In the past, you may have thought your ballot didn't help change politics,
but in this election it's not (the case),'' Hatoyama, who could become Japan's
next prime minister if his Democratic Party of Japan wins the House of
Representatives election, told a large crowd in front of JR Ikebukuro Station
in Tokyo.
''This is the first-ever election in which we may be able to achieve a change
of power,'' he said. ''I'm confident that years later, you'll recall Aug. 30 as
a day when Japan's politics changed.''
A series of media polls show the main opposition party is headed toward a
landslide victory in the election, ending the Liberal Democratic Party's almost
total control of Japanese politics for more than half a century.
''It takes courage to rewrite history...the United States was able to do so,
and why not Japan?'' he said, drawing wild applaud from listeners. He was
referring to the administration of new U.S. President Barack Obama taking
office in January.
On the other side of the same station, Aso, who heads the struggling LDP, said,
''The economic measures we have taken since last year were not mistaken,''
asking voters to give the LDP-New Komeito coalition power to complete its
steps.
''I will accomplish them completely,'' he said.
In his stump speech, the Japanese leader also slammed the DPJ for opposing the
economic sanctions on North Korea, which his administration compiled in line
with a U.N. Security Council resolution, despite its earlier claim, by former
DPJ chief Ichiro Ozawa, that the DPJ favors a U.N.-centered security policy.
In a rare criticism against Ozawa, Aso argued that the DPJ's stance is too
heavily swayed by the party's former president and that the party has failed to
find a consensus on security policy, saying that such an ''authoritarian''
party should not take the reins of government.
Both Aso and Hatoyama wrapped up the 12-day campaigning in Tokyo's No. 10
constituency, a district viewed as a symbol of the LDP's runaway win in the
previous general election.
In the 2005 election, then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi sent former
Environment Minister Yuriko Koike to the district as an ''assassin'' to vie
against a so-called ''postal rebel'' who opposed Koizumi's postal privatization
bills.
But Koike this time is facing an uphill battle against a novice DPJ candidate,
Takako Ebata.
Earlier in the day, Aso also rapped the DPJ for changing the contents of its
campaign manifesto.
''They said they would conclude a Japan-U.S. free trade agreement, but then
changed it immediately after being criticized,'' he said in Oyama, Tochigi
Prefecture. ''The biggest problem is concern over whether it's okay to let such
people take the reins (of government).''
The DPJ initially said in its policy platform that it would conclude an FTA
with the United States if it takes power but later revised its position to say
the party will seek to promote liberalization of trade and investment by
promoting negotiations over an FTA with the United States.
In an earlier speech in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, Hatoyama said the DPJ will put
an end to ''bureaucrat-led irresponsible politics'' and create the ''first
democratic government in which the people will be involved in policy issues.''
DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada said in Toki, Gifu Prefecture, that the
anticipated change in government is not a goal but rather the beginning of a
process of changing the country with its people taking the leading role.
==Kyodo