TOKYO, JAPAN - JAPAN'S Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda was urged by a party ally on Saturday to reshuffle his government to break a political stalemate, a week after surviving a censure motion in parliament.

Mr Fukuda has struggled to push through bills, mostly held over from previous governments, and his approval rating has dipped amid criticism of his leadership and vision for the country.

'If he doesn't do it within July, he will miss the chance,' Mr Taku Yamasaki, former deputy president of Fukuda's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), said as the country's divided parliament ended a tumultuous session on Saturday.

Mr Fukuda, due to host the Group-of-Eight summit July 7-9 and convene an extra parliament session in August, admitted late on Friday that it had been 'quite tough' to manage parliament business during the 284-day session.

'I feel that we could not have sufficient discussions although we spent a lot of time.' Mr Fukuda took office last September after his predecessor Shinzo Abe stepped down following the scandal-hit government party's crushing defeat to the opposition in an upper house election last July.

The Democrats hold 119 seats against 84 for the LDP in the 242-seat upper house.

But the LDP still has two thirds of 480 seats in the more powerful lower house with its coalition partner New Komeito holding 31 seats.

In the upper house, the opposition passed an unprecedented non-binding censure motion against Mr Fukuda on June 11 over a controversial medical plan affecting people over 75 and other issues.

The symbolic motion was quickly answered by the LDP with a rare vote of confidence in the lower chamber for Mr Fukuda, who has refused to call early elections.

The lower house's current term will end in September next year.

Japanese media chided both ruling and opposition blocs for using parliament business for political campaigning.

'We cannot condone a stalemate in politics. We wish that both ruling and opposition parties to compete with policy measures in the next extraordinary session,' the business daily Nikkei said in an editorial Saturday.

The mass-circulation Yomiuri said: 'A parliament session laden with political strife should not be repeated while sights are set on a general election.' The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan has already urged its members to be prepared for an early election.

'Let us play the ball game altogether to take power,' Democrat leader Ichiro Ozawa told a meeting of his party's lawmakers on Friday.

'The election will be definitely held no later than the beginning of the next year,' he said.

The divisive nature of parliament came to the fore in January when the LDP overrode an upper house rejection and resume a controversial naval refuelling mission supporting the US-led 'war on terror.'

Then in the upper house, the Democrats torpedoed the government's plan to renew an extra tax on petrol which has finance road construction.

After a month-long absence, the tax was reinstalled as the LDP rammed it through the lower house. The opposition also rejected a Mr Fukuda-appointed candidate, a former top finance bureaucrat, for the Bank of Japan governor.

The appointment requires approval from both chambers. -- AFP