Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has called a September 11th election for parliament's lower house in hopes of winning a new mandate for reform.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has called a snap election in Japan
The decision to call a snap poll came after ruling party rebels in parliament's upper house joined the opposition to defeat bills to privatise Japan's vast postal system - the core of Mr Koizumi's agenda for change.
Mr Koizumi is gambling that a purge of those anti-reformers from the Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled Japan for most of the past half century, will allow him to forge ahead.
"I see the rejection of the postal privatisation bills as a rejection of the Koizumi cabinet and the Koizumi reforms," the prime minister told a news conference.
"I want to ask the Japanese people whether they say 'Yes' or 'No' to my reform agenda," he said.
But the bitter split means the LDP could lose to the opposition Democratic Party, a centrist party that argues it can succeed at reform where the LDP failed.
Mr Koizumi ruled out co-operating with those who oppose the privatisation bills and said he would step down if the LDP and its junior coalition partner, the New Komeito, failed to win a majority in the lower house. He said anti-reform lawmakers would not be approved as LDP candidates.
Mr Koizumi sees postal privatisation as crucial to his broader goal of weaning the LDP from the wasteful public spending that won votes but spawned scandals and inflated government debt.