TOKYO : Beleaguered Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday pleaded with voters to trust him to carry out reforms, on the eve of an election predicted to hand a crushing defeat to the conservative leader.

Abe has long championed reforms to erase the legacies of Japan's World War II defeat, including the rewriting of the US-imposed 1947 pacifist constitution.

But the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader has recently refocused his reformist message on fixing the pension system and other economic issues amid slipping popularity.

"The LDP will continue to keep pushing reforms. Please give us strength. Please give us a victory," Abe shouted by microphone at a rally in one of Tokyo's top shopping districts.

With newspaper headlines blaring "Political confusion inevitable after the polls" and "the LDP in adverse winds," Abe was due to tour bustling urban areas on the last campaign day in an apparent bid to attract non-affiliated voters.

Ichiro Ozawa, who heads the main opposition Democratic Party, has focused on rural areas in a strategy aimed at appealing to farmers and others who feel left behind by the economic reforms under Abe's predecessor Junichiro Koizumi.

Ozawa was to due to spend the final campaign day in western cities some 600 kilometres (370 miles) away from the capital.

Polls by the Japanese media have showed Abe's coalition is on course for a major defeat in Sunday's election, which involves the upper house of parliament and not the more powerful lower house.

The lower house selects the prime minister but upper house votes are usually seen as a referendum on the government.

Previous premiers have quit after suffering setbacks, although Abe's aides insist he is not considering resignation.

Public interest in Sunday's polls has been high, with absentee voting by July 22 up a sharp 54 percent from the last upper-house elections in 2004.

- AFP/ir