Tokyo ? Japan’s embattled prime minister has decided to dissolve parliament and call general elections for next month, a news reports said early today, after his party was defeated in a Tokyo municipal poll considered a barometer of voter sentiment.

Broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News said Taro Aso would dissolve the powerful lower house of parliament next week, and that national elections would be held Aug. 30.

Spokesmen at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters and the prime minister’s office said they had no knowledge of the matter.