Japan coalition set for big election majority

TOKYO, Wednesday (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's coalition is on track to win a comfortable majority of 252 seats in the 480-seat lower house of parliament in next week's election and could win up to 300, a newspaper reported on Wednesday, extrapolating from a poll of voting intentions.

The poll by the conservative Sankei Shimbun was the latest to show that voters support plans by Koizumi and his Liberal Democratic Party to privatise the postal system as a step towards enacting other major economic and social reforms.

A stable majority of 252 seats would allow the LDP and its coalition partner, the Buddhist-backed New Komeito, to chair all committees in the lower house, easing the passage of legislation.

But the newspaper also said some 20-30 percent of respondents remained undecided, and noted that the random telephone survey of 43,530 voters carried out between Sept. 1-4 might not accurately represent younger voters who only have mobile phones.