Koizumi Wins Big

When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's proposal to reform Japan's postal service failed, he dissolved Parliament and called for new elections. The NYT reports that his gamble has paid off:

Immediately after polls closed at 8 p.m. across the country, television networks predicted that the Liberal Democratic Party had won enough seats in the lower house of Parliament to allow it to govern without a junior coalition partner for the first time in 15 years.
Such a big victory was likely to hand Mr. Koizumi the popular mandate to push through a recalcitrant Parliament his bills to reform Japan's postal services, which with $3 trillion in assets is the world's largest financial institution.
In recent days, as polls showed strong support for Mr. Koizumi, members who had opposed the bills in the upper house of Parliament publicly announced that they would change their position in a future vote.