LDP faces ouster in elections

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A scorching August sun has been providing the ideal backdrop to an already overheated political season in Japan.

As voters head to the polls this Sunday,the nation's political landscape looks set to shift dramatically as a half-century of nearly uninterrupted Liberal Democratic Party rule draws to an end.

A series of recent polls have all indicated that Japanese voters will likely oust the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has enjoyed a nearly uninterrupted monopoly on power for the past 54 years.

But while Japanese voters have expressed a desire for change before, analysts say the situation this time around is fundamentally different, with long-simmering public unease being magnified into a feeling of outright existential threat.

Jeff Kingston, Director pf Asoam StUTIES, Temple University, Japan Campus, said, "I think the Japanese people are desperate for change. The DPJ doesn't have to do anything. As long as they're not the LDP, people will vote for them."

The forces that underpinned the Liberal Democrats' grip on power are not what they once were.

And for the first time, the Liberal Democrats have a credible rival in the Democratic Party of Japan, which promises to put more money in consumers' pockets, cut wasteful spending and restore Japan's prestige as the world's second-largest economy.