Final campaign push a day before Japanese vote

TOKYO (AP) - Candidates made final impassioned appeals on Saturday to voters a day before Japanese parliamentary elections that are likely to hand power back to a conservative party that ruled the country for most of the post-war era.

Polls suggest that voters will dump Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's ruling Democratic Party of Japan three years after it swept to power amid sweeping promises for change.

The DPJ's inability to deliver on a string of promises and Mr Noda's push to double the sales tax have turned off voters, who appear to be turning back to the Liberal Democratic Party. The LDP ruled Japan almost continuously since 1955 until it lost badly to the DPJ in 2009.

If the LDP wins on Sunday, it would give the hawkish Shinzo Abe, who was prime minister from 2006-2007, the top job again, raising questions about how that might affect ties with rival China amid a territorial dispute over a cluster of tiny islands claimed by both countries.