Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's coalition government is expected to have its parliamentary majority eroded in general elections with the main opposition party's big gains heralding a genuine two-party system, according to Japanese media projections this morning. Meanwhile, the head of the main opposition Democratic Party, Naoto Kan, said the coalition led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had won the public's mandate in the poll." It is proper to think that the ruling coalition, which has won a majority and possibly an absolute majority, at least in numbers in the election, has won the public's mandate," Kan said. Public broadcaster NHK said the three-party coalition won 272 seats out of 480 in the House of Representatives in the ballot with eight seats still to be counted. TV Asahi put the coalition tally at 273 with the count continuing for three seats. The LDP got 234 seats according to NHK and 235 in TV Asahi's calculation. If confirmed in official results to be released later today, the LDP will have lost the majority it had held in its own right, without taking the seats of coalition partners into account. To achieve this simple majority, the LDP would need to have won at least 241 seats. In the last parliament, the LDP held 247 seats and the coalition 287, compared to 137 for the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which picked up 174 seats this time, according to NHK, while TV Asahi put the figure at 177. The election was the first chance for 103 million voters to pass judgement on the two and a half year-old Koizumi government. Koizumi said after voting ended he would regard a combined majority by the three existing coalition parties - the LDP, the New Komei Party and the New Conservative Party - as a victory. Takenori Kanzaki, leader of the Buddhist-backed New Komei, confirmed his party would continue to support the Koizumi government. But Koizumi also acknowledged that people were impatient for change after 48 years of virtually unbroken LDP rule. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. (Reuters)