Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urged voters to back the privatization of Japan's postal service while his rival attacked the plan Saturday, wrapping up a dramatic campaign for parliamentary elections expected to deliver victory to the ruling party. The ballot Sunday for the 480-seat lower house of parliament was widely seen just the way Koizumi wanted it: as a referendum for his project to split up and sell Japan Post's mail, insurance and savings services, creating the world's largest private bank. "Are public employees the only ones who can take care of important jobs?" Koizumi thundered to a crowd at a Tokyo train station. "Privatization of the postal service is the best way to cut down on the number of civil servants in Japan." In another part of the city, his main rival, Katsuya Okada, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, drove home his message that the country has more pressing concerns than the postal service. "Japan faces problems of decreasing of population, aging society and increasing of national debts," Okada was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. "Mr. Koizumi sounds as if life will be all rosy if the postal service is privatized, but no one takes what he says seriously." Opinion polls throughout the campaign showed Koizumi with rising support since he dissolved the powerful lower house on Aug. 8 and called snap elections after his postal privatization plan was torpedoed in the upper house. The Asahi newspaper Saturday showed 42 percent of respondents wanted Koizumi to continue as prime minister, while only 17 supported an Okada-led government. The paper surveyed 1,031 people by phone on Thursday and Friday.
