TOKYO -- After a bruising power struggle that left several political parties in disarray, parliament named Socialist chairman Tomiichi Murayama on Wednesday as Japan's next prime minister.


Murayama, the first Socialist leader since 1948 to serve as Japan's prime minister, will head a coalition dominated by Japan's largest party, the Liberal Democrats, who ruled the country from 1955 until they were forced from power last summer.


Meeting just hours before the end of its current session Wednesday, parliament's 511-seat lower house elected Murayama prime minister 261 to 214. He succeeds Tsutomu Hata, forced to resign because his coalition lacked a majority in parliament, and is Japan's fourth prime minister in a year.


"I plan to do my best," Murayama said in brief remarks shortly after the vote. "Thank you all for your support."


Murayama's selection provided a temporary respite from the political confusion that has hamstrung Japan's leadership since the Liberal Democrats lost power.


But it installs a leadership deeply divided.


Since the nine-month term of Japan's last Socialist prime minister, Tetsu Katayama, 46 years ago, the main business of the Socialists has been to oppose the Liberal Democrats.


The Liberal Democrats were pro-business, the Socialists were pro-labor; the Liberal Democrats supported the United States, the Socialists sympathized with the Soviet Union.


Outnumbered by the larger Liberal Democrats, Murayama's government is unlikely to make major changes in Japan's economic and foreign policies.


It is also likely to be brief -- Murayama said before the vote that he planned to dissolve parliament and call general elections.


The Liberal Democrats normally would be expected to back their party president, Yohei Kono, for prime minister. But on Wednesday, Liberal Democrats leaders offered to back Murayama for prime minister in a last-minute bid to lure him to their side.


The race took an unexpected turn late Wednesday when the former prime minister, Toshiki Kaifu, emerged as a leading candidate for Hata's post, defying the Liberal Democrats' decision to back Murayama.


Kaifu's own 1989-91 tenure as prime minister was cut short by an attempt to push through political reforms not fully backed by his party.


Hata's eight-bloc coalition subsequently decided it would back Kaifu as Hata's successor, and in another surprise announcement, another ex-prime minister, Yasuhiro Nakasone, said he also would split from the Liberal Democrats to back Kaifu for prime minister.


But with 206 seats, the Liberal Democrats are by far the largest party in the lower house. Joined with the Socialists, who hold 74 seats, they had enough sway to win a majority of the 504 ballots cast.


Hata remained as a caretaker prime minister until the naming of his successor. He was obliged to resign to avoid losing a no-confidence vote in parliament after he failed to persuade the Socialists, who left his coalition in April, to return to the eight-party alliance.