Koizumi confident of election victory

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has expressed confidence that his party will win next month's nationwide elections, despite eroding public support.

The election was called after Upper House defectors from Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party rejected his plan to privatise Japan Post's savings account system.

Koizumi retaliated by saying next month's poll would be a referendum on his reforms and that the LDP would remove opponents of the plan from the ticket.