"I will dissolve the parliament on November 16" if the Liberal Democratic Party promises to cooperate on slashing the number of seats in the lower house, Noda said Wednesday in a one-on-one debate with LDP president Shinzo Abe.

Noda promised to call a snap election "in the near future" in return for the opposition's cooperation in passing legislation to hike sales tax, but has since has been under pressure to clarify the date of the vote.

Noda is widely expected to have an uphill battle to get his Democratic Party of Japan re-elected in the face of widespread voter disillusionment with its record in the three years since it ousted the long-ruling LDP.

An election defeat would mean Noda, who took office in September 2011, would become the sixth successive Japanese leader to leave the prime minister's residence after spending roughly a year in office.

His predecessors in the current parliament, Yukio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan, both resigned amid low approval ratings and power struggles within the DPJ.

With a short election cycle and fickle public opinion, Japan has changed leaders almost annually since Junichiro Koizumi, who led the nation for more than five years to September 2006.