Still, as Yashiro points out, it is now clearer than ever that the way forward for Japan, if it is to revive its economy, is the way plotted by Koizumi and his reformer in 2001-2006.
As was pointed out recently in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun by Koizumi-government economics minister Takenaka Heizo, what is missing in the proposal is any adjustment in pension benefits or other measures to manage its costs.
Accordingly, it rejected the free-market version of change championed by Junichiro Koizumi, a reforming LDP prime minister.
DPJ, led by Katsuya Okada, has clearly been frustrated by Mr Koizumi's skill at portraying Japan Post as a litmus test for reformists.
ECONOMIST: Japan's election: The woodpecker and the lumberjack | The
It has said that North Korea's nuclear programme will be a main priority in Japan's efforts to normalise relations with North Korea following an historic visit in September to the country's capital, Pyongyang, by Junichiro Koizumi, the Japanese prime minister.
But even by then, Mr Koizumi expects, he will have set the agenda: he insists that potential candidates should be judged by their commitment to reforms that allocate economic resources more efficiently in Japan.
ECONOMIST: There's still no alternative to the Koizumi doctrine
After some early gains by Mr Hashimoto, Mr Koizumi now seems to be inching ahead.
Moreover some of the LDP's gains were made by notable followers of Mr Koizumi.
It was privatized last year by outgoing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
The prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, is worried by the figures.
In the latest general election, in 2005, the then prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, challenged the system by appealing directly to voters.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is pledging to stick by his plan to liberalize the economy, but his popularity, once well above 70%, has abruptly plunged to just above 50%.
"Ten years ago we were overconfident, " Koizumi said this week, as quoted by Reuters.
It was for these reasons that Mr Koizumi outlined plans to privatise Japan Post by degrees between 2007 and 2017.
In a statement, Koizumi acknowledged the "enormous damage" inflicted by Japan's military "by colonization and invasion" during the conflict.
Indeed, South Korea has already taken the step that Mr Koizumi is postponing until after the election, by sending 675 military engineers and medics to Iraq.
Yet in Nishi-Koizumi in Gunma prefecture, just north of Tokyo, a town dominated by a Sanyo electronics plant, the picture is different.
At first, Mr Koizumi asked Mr Yanagisawa to come up with candidates from the private sector, but was overruled by his minister.
Finally, Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, reconfirmed the government's resolution to normalise the problem of non-performing loans by the end of the 2004 fiscal year at the latest.
Prime Minister Koizumi should use the occasion of his first meeting with President Bush to announce a "go" decision by Japan to join the United States in acquiring a missile defense system.
Mr Koizumi, who has also been widely criticised for his indifferent response to the scandals, is getting weaker by the day, prompting speculation that he may soon have to give in to members of the old guard within his party and reshuffle the cabinet to give them more power, with dangerous implications for his so far largely unfulfilled promises of reform.
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