Suicide bid at Koizumi rally

Police immediately rushed the man away

A Japanese man has slashed his throat with a knife in an apparent suicide bid at a rally where Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was launching his party's parliamentary election campaign.

He was screaming something about Koizumi before I noticed that he had stabbed himself

Eyewitness

Mr Koizumi was about 30 metres away and had just started speaking at a meeting in central Tokyo when the man slashed either side of his neck with a 12cm kitchen knife.

He was taken to hospital but his condition was said not to be life-threatening. No-one else was injured.

Blood stained the ground after the incident

Police said the man's motive was not known but suggested it may have been a political protest as literature found in his bag suggested links to right-wing politics.

One witness said: "He was screaming something about Koizumi before I noticed that he had stabbed himself with a knife."

Campaign launch

The prime minister was not endangered and the incident failed to mar the launch of the Liberal Democratic Party's campaign for the 29 July election.

Japan elections

121 seats in the House of Councillors are being contested

LDP coalition currently controls 138 out of 252 seats

Total number of seats will fall to 247 after election

Nearly 500 candidates registered

The focus of the campaign is expected to be Mr Koizumi's proposals for extensive economic reforms.

Addressing a crowd of more than 3,000 people he said: "If you hand victory to our Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), reforms will be implemented in a visible way."

Koizumi promised "visible" reforms

But the leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, Yukio Hatoyama, said in the central Japanese city of Nagano that reforms would not be achieved unless the ruling party changed.

Mr Koizumi is immensely popular, his personal approval rating stands at more than 80%.

The LDP and its coalition partners currently hold 138 out of 252 seats in the House of Councillors - 121seats are being contested.

After the election, the total number of upper-house seats will fall to 247 as a result of a new electoral reform bill passed last year.