A poll projected last Thursday that Japan’s main opposition party is set to secure a landslide victory against Prime Minister Taro Aso’s ruling party by winning a two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament in elections this weekend.

According to the Asahi, a major newspaper, the Democratic Party of Japan will likely win 320 of the 480 seats in the powerful lower house being contested in Sunday’s elections. The party, headed by Yukio Hatoyama, had 112 seats in the lower house before parliament was dissolved in July.

The Asahi poll said that Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party, which held 300 seats before the elections, is likely to win just 100 seats.

The Asahi said it randomly polled 190,338 eligible voters by telephone from Aug. 22 to 25. It did not provide a margin of error, but a poll of that size would normally have a margin of error of less than one percentage point.

Hatoyama would likely become prime minister if his party wins control of the lower house. The Liberal Democrats have governed Japan since 1955 with the exception of one period of less than a year in 1993-1994.

The poll of the Asahi is the latest in a series of surveys by different pollsters projecting that the opposition party would win more than 300 seats.

(via the Associated Press)