By Yuri Kageyama
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, Sept. 21, 1999; 6:00 a.m. EDT

TOKYO –– Riding a wave of popularity and facing no serious opposition, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi was re-elected today as head of Japan's ruling party – a win that ensures him a fresh term as the nation's leader.

Obuchi won 350 votes, far more than his two challengers. Former party Secretary-General Koichi Kato got 113 votes, while former Construction Minister Taku Yamasaki had 51.

Whoever leads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is also prime minister because the Liberal Democrats control the majority in both houses of Parliament.

The tally combined the ballots from the 371 ruling party lawmakers, cast at party headquarters, with ballots sent in earlier by mail by the rank-and-file party membership. Every 10,000 votes of the party members are equal in weight to one legislator's vote.

Obuchi's victory was widely expected. Japanese media have reported that Obuchi had a decisive lead going into the balloting, with about 70 percent of the support from lawmakers.

With the outcome so clear from the start, the vote generated little public interest despite its importance to the national political scene. Voter turnout from the rank-and-file was its lowest ever at about 49 percent.

All three candidates ran on basically the same platform, and Obuchi's rivals conceded that they didn't expect to win.

The three support efforts to expand new businesses to revive the lagging economy and to maintain close defense ties with the United States. Both Kato and Yamasaki are believed to have run mainly to boost their chances of becoming prime minister after Obuchi.

"I am satisfied that I have fully spoken on what I wanted to say," Kato said on nationally televised news.

When Obuchi became prime minister last year, replacing Ryutaro Hashimoto after a disastrous national parliamentary election, many saw him as a stopgap leader who would be run out of office within months.

But he has silenced the nay-sayers by implementing emergency measures that appear to have lifted Japan out of its worst recession in 50 years. This month, the government announced that the economy had grown for two straight quarters this year.

Obuchi has said that he will try to pass an additional economic-stimulus budget, including public spending, as soon as he is re-elected.

His success with the economy is a major factor in his surprisingly high popularity. He has won approval ratings of 50 percent or higher in recent media polls.