INTERVIEW-Japan opposition aims to boost domestic demand

TOKYO, July 28 - Japan's main opposition party will aim to expand domestic demand by boosting consumption to achieve economic growth and help the nation's struggling economy, the party's No.2 executive said on Tuesday.

Voter surveys show the opposition Democratic Party, which vows to pay more heed to consumers than companies and wrest control of policy from bureaucrats, has its best ever chance of beating Prime Minister Taro Aso's business-friendly Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in an Aug. 30 election.

"As excess consumption in the United States is being corrected, the model in which the (Japanese) economy is led by exports will no longer be valid," Democratic Party Secretary-General Katsuya Okada told Reuters in an interview.

"We're aiming for economic growth led by domestic demand," Okada added, rejecting the idea of boosting public works spending as a way to achieve sustainable growth.

An opposition victory in the election of lower house of parliament would end more than five decades of almost unbroken rule by the LDP and raise the chances of breaking a stalemate in a divided parliament, where the Democrats and their allies control the upper house and can delay bills.