Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is celebrating a landslide victory in the general election that took place as a typhoon swept the country’s Pacific coast Sunday.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe scored a landslide victory on Sunday as his conservative ruling party and a coalition partner secured a two-thirds majority in parliament that will allow him to push ahead unimpeded in his quest to change Japan’s pacifist constitution.
Not even a typhoon battering Japan’s Pacific coast could impede Abe — and may have helped by contributing to a turnout figure of just under 54%, the second lowest in the postwar period. Low turnout has traditionally benefited Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, which has been in power for most of the last 60 years.
The LDP and partner Komeito party needed 310 seats for a two-thirds majority in the 465-seat House of Representatives. By Monday morning, with four seats yet to be declared, the ruling coalition had claimed 312 seats.
„I think the results reflected the voters‘ preference for a solid political foundation and their expectations for us to push polices forward and achieve results,“ Abe told the Japanese broadcaster NHK.
The battle to become the official opposition party was a close race between the right-wing Party of Hope, with 50 seats, and the left-leaning Constitutional Democratic Party, with 54. Both parties have been in existence for less than a month.
The snap election was called late last month by Abe, who said he was seeking a mandate to divert revenue from a sales tax increase, allowing it to be spent on child care and education rather than paying down Japan’s huge national debt. However, the increase, from 8% to 10%, won’t happen until October 2019 and most analysts said Abe was taking advantage of opposition disarray and concerns about North Korea to strengthen his position.
The challenge from the new Party of Hope, formed in late September by Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, faded fast. Meanwhile, the centrist opposition Democratic Party split, part of it joining Koike and the rest launching the Constitutional Democratic Party.
