TOKYO, Aug 8: In the biggest gamble of his career, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi called a September election for parliament’s lower house on Monday in hopes of winning a new mandate for reform.

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 betting 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.

Party officials have said the rebels would not be approved as LDP candidates.

“I want to ask the public whether they prefer the reform party of the LDP or the opposition, which are resistance forces that oppose postal privatisation. That is why I dissolved parliament,” he told party lawmakers. —Reuters