Tokyo: Japan’s leader has scored a major victory in national elections that returned his ruling coalition to power in decisive fashion. Japanese media said Monday that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and a small coalition partner had together secured at least 312 seats in the 465-seat lower house of parliament, passing the 310-barrier for a two-thirds majority. Four seats remained undecided.
The victory boosts Abe’s chances of winning another three-year term next September as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party. That could extend his premiership to 2021, giving him more time to try to win a reluctant public over to his longtime goal of revising Japan’s pacifist constitution.
