Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said on Monday he still planned to step down next year despite his party's landslide election win, raising the question of who would succeed one of the most popular leaders in Japan's history. Some members of the ruling coalition said Koizumi should stay on after his term as president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ends in September 2006 to turn his popularity into votes for the upper house election due in the summer of 2007, Reuters reported. But Koizumi ruled out such a possibility, saying there were many LDP lawmakers keen to succeed him. "I have said I have no intention of staying on as party president and prime minister (beyond Sept. 2006), and there is no change to that," he told a news conference. "There are a lot of people interested ... I want them to start preparing from now." The LDP won 296 of the 480 seats in parliament's lower house, taking a majority in the chamber for the first time in 15 years. Asked to characterise his successor, Koizumi said: "I am pinning my hopes on those who would take the reforms forward".
