Japanese back at the booths for general election

On Sunday, Japanese voters will walk the well-worn path to the polls to vote in a general election that will give the country its seventh prime minister in six years.

If early opinion polls are correct, most voters will back the Liberal Democrat Party led by Shinzo Abe, giving it another stab at power three years after it was unceremoniously dumped for the Democrat Party of Japan.

Until then, the LDP had held onto power for around five decades. But now the challenges are greater and they start with a struggling economy, regional tensions and questions over Japan's role in Asia.

"Because the Liberal Democrats have been in power traditionally for quite a long time they're seen as more a competent governing party," said John Lee, an adjunct associate professor at the Center for International Security Studies at Sydney University.

"The day-to-day business of the current party is seen as pretty dismal."