Junichiro Koizumi must have enjoyed daydreaming about his famous September election victory when, against all the odds, he led the Liberal Democratic party to a landslide that assured his place in history as one of Japan?s most influential postwar prime ministers.

But one scene in those elections, being replayed over and over on television, has come back to haunt him. That is when Heizo Takenaka, the architect of Mr Koizumi?s economic policies, and Tsutomu Takebe, the LDP?s secretary-general and the prime minister?s so-called ?great yes man?, appeared on the stump to endorse Takafumi Horie, the fallen idol of Japan?s free-market drive.