Candidates in Japan's supertight Lower House election were making a last-ditch appeals to voters Saturday, with opinion polls suggesting the ruling coalition might fall short of a majority.

Such an outcome would be the worst result for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 2009 and potentially a knockout blow to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, analysts say.

Ishiba — a fan of trains, 1970s pop idols and making model ships and planes — only last month took the helm of the LDP, which has governed Japan for almost all of the past seven decades.