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Saturday September 22, 3:42 PM Fukuda ahead on eve of vote for Japan PM Photo: AFP TOKYO (AFP) - Yasuo Fukuda, the front-runner to be Japan's next premier, vowed Saturday to restore trust in politics on the eve of a party vote expected to put him in charge of the world's second biggest economy. Latest opinion polls gave the foreign policy dove a commanding majority over his only rival Taro Aso in the race to lead the ruling Liberal Democrat Party and, with it, the premiership. The troubled LDP meets Sunday to elect a successor to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who abruptly resigned last week and checked in to a hospital with exhaustion amid rock-bottom ratings and a raft of cabinet scandals. The influential Asahi Shimbun said Fukuda had secured the support of more than 60 percent of LDP parliament members and a majority of representatives of LDP regional branches who will also vote. Public broadcaster NHK said Fukuda was also ahead in early voting Saturday by some LDP regional branches, so far securing 20 votes, as opposed to 13 for Aso. Fukuda, 71, and former foreign minister Aso, 67, went on the road for joint campaign appearances, delivering speeches in the northern city of Sendai. Fukuda apologised to the audience for mismanagement of the pension system -- an issue which incensed the public in the rapidly greying nation and led to a plunge in Abe's popularity. "I'll restore public trust in politics," Fukuda said, quoted by Jiji Press. Aso took up the widening income divide between cities and rural areas, saying "what is now required for us is to have a sense of entrepreneurship on how to manage regional economies." In July elections, the opposition seized on growing concern that free-market reforms had widened an income gap, ousting the LDP from control of the upper house of parliament for the first time in a half-century. The winner of Sunday's vote is almost guaranteed to become prime minister when parliament votes Tuesday as the LDP enjoys a strong majority in the more powerful lower house. The first challenge for the winner will be extending the mandate of Japan's military operation in the Indian Ocean, which provides logistical support for US-led forces in Afghanistan. The mission was ground-breaking at the time for Japan, which has been officially pacifist since World War II, and the opposition has vowed to end it, saying that Tokyo has become part of "American wars." Amid the political battle over the Indian Ocean mission, a report renewed charges that Japan's refueling mission served not only the Afghan mission but also the US-led war in Iraq. The Asahi Shimbun in its Saturday evening edition said the former captain of a US aircraft carrier in the Gulf admitted in an interview that his ship had received fuel from Japan in 2005. The report comes a day after Japan ordered an investigation and admitted initial under-reporting after a pacifist group made similar claims regarding another US ship involved in the Iraq war. Abe, an advocate of a more muscular foreign policy, effectively staked his job on extending the Indian Ocean mission. Fukuda, despite more dovish views, has also pledged to continue the naval operation. In anticipation of the fight ahead, he has decided to reappoint key members of Abe's last cabinet including Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura and Defence Minister Masahiko Komura, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. The newspaper, which did not identify its sources, said Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga would also be among the cabinet members to stay.