The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is a conservative party that, albeit with a brief blip in the 1990s, has been the dominating force in Japanese party politics since its formation in 1955. After a massive victory in the September 2005 House of Representaives General Election, the LDP gained an absolute majority in the Japan’s upper house. On September 20th 2006 Abe Shinzo succeeded previous Party President and Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi. The LDP in currently in coalition with the New Komeito. [1]

The next Japanese general election is due to take place on or before Friday 30 August 2013, a barring by Constitution of Japan. It will see voting take place in all Representatives constituencies of Japan including proportional blocks, in order to appoint Members of Diet to seats in the House of Representatives, the lower house of the National Diet of Japan. This will be the 46th general election for Japan since 1890.
The last general election took place in 2009 in which the DPJ, led by Yukio Hatoyama, received 42.41% of the proportional block votes and 47.43% of the district votes cast (the next largest party, the LDP, received 26.73% in the proportional and 38.68% in the district vote). Due to the characteristics of the Japanese election system, the DPJ ended up with 308 seats in the Lower House (42.4%), which enabled Hatoyama to become prime minister. Since then Japan has had one further prime minister (Naoto Kan) who have come to power without there being a general election. [2]

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan came out on Tuesday in favor of a double election for the upper and lower houses of the Diet (Japanese Parliament) in 2013, adding that an early election risked worsening political confusion.
Speaking before a lower house special committee on post-disaster rebuilding efforts, Kan said he refused to believe that revising the manifesto of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) would require the dissolution of the lower house.
"To speak of a snap election is against public sentiment," Kan said, adding that rebuilding was the top priority for the country struggling with a nuclear crisis and a stagnant economy, according to Reuters.
However, a weekend survey conducted by Kyodo News Agency showed 66.9 percent of the public think the unpopular prime minister should leave office by the end of August.
Liu Jiangyong, deputy director of the Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times that Kan is on borrowed time now.
"An early election was unlikely, given the strong resistance to the move inside the DPJ which has a huge majority in the lower house now but would likely face a crushing defeat if elections were held soon," Liu said. "Nevertheless, I think Kans chances to stay on as prime minister beyond this Parliament session are close to nil, due to pressures from the opposition and his own party."
Opposition lawmakers on Tuesday slammed Kans comment, saying that someone who has already expressed his intention to step down in the near future should not be commenting on the timing of the next general election, according to Japanese Times.
"You can trust the words of a prime minister who has expressed his intention to resign, even if he makes comments about dissolving the (lower) chamber in two years," New Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi said.
He Xin and agencies contributed to this story [3]

The New Komeito (New Komei Party or NKP) was formed in November 1998 through a merger of its more radical older brother, the Komeito (or Clean Government Party), and the New Peace Party. Originally, the brainchild of Daisaku Ikeda, leader of the Buddhist organisation, Soka Gakkai, the party runs on a strongly Buddhist-influenced conservative-centrist platform. Its religious links have provided the party with a large voter-base with proactive grass-roots campaign methods, and as a result the New Komeito did well in all four elections from 2000 to 2004. The NKP is currently in coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party. From 1998 until 2006, the New Komeito was led by Takenori Kanzaki, The current leader is Akihito Ota. [4]

[1] - http://www2.furukawa.cc/ENGLISH/GUIDE/diet.html

[2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Japanese_general_election

[3] - http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/668116/Japanese-PM-rules-out-early-election-to-indignation-from-opposition.aspx

[4] - http://www2.furukawa.cc/ENGLISH/GUIDE/diet.html