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Candidates for 480 seats in Japan's lower house of Parliament kicked off their campaigns Tuesday for an election that will determine who will govern Japan for the next four years.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi aims to keep his three-party coalition in power so he can carry out economic reforms. The largest opposition group, the Democrats, wants to remove Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party from government for the first time in a decade.

Surrounded by security police, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, center, makes a campaign kick-off in Machida, suburban Tokyo, Oct. 28, 2003. Koizumi tries to win a majority of the 480 seats in the powerful House of Representatives in the Nov. 9 polls. [AP]

The Democrats also advocate economic reforms, but present themselves as a fresh alternative to the long-governing LDP.

Koizumi said on the eve of the campaign kickoff that he would resign as premier if his three-party ruling coalition loses a majority in the Nov. 9 election.

Analysts say the coalition, which also includes the New Komeito Party and the New Conservative Party, likely will retain a majority of at least 241 seats. The coalition now has 285 seats in the lower house.

It is less certain if the LDP alone will win more than half the seats in the lower house, as Koizumi said he would like. While the prime minister remains popular with the public, this has not always translated into support for candidates of his party.

Polls show some 40 percent of voters are undecided on who they will vote for in the election.

"The long-held way of thinking, that we can just leave everything up to the LDP, is under question," the Mainichi Shimbun, a national daily newspaper, said in an editorial Tuesday.

Aside from an eight-month period in opposition in 1993, the LDP has governed Japan for close to 50 years.

The party published full-page color ads in the national newspapers to get their campaign underway, with a giant banner saying "The LDP Has changed! It is the party of reform" running next to a picture of Koizumi.

The Democrats ran commercials on national television featuring leader Naoto Kan. Kan said Monday his party aims to win more than 200 seats, a sharp jump from the 137 seats it currently controls.

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