JAPAN: Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc suffers crushing defeat at polls

Record ID: 465426

  • Title: JAPAN: Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc suffers crushing defeat at polls
  • Date: 29th July 2007
  • Summary: (W3) TOKYO, JAPAN (JULY 29, 2007) (REUTERS) CAR ARRIVING WITH BALLOT BOXES, PEOPLE COLLECTING BOXES FROM CAR VARIOUS OF PEOPLE RUNNING INTO BUILDING WITH BALLOT BOXES VARIOUS OF BALLOT BOXES BEING OPENED AND VOTES SORTED PILE OF BALLOT SLIPS VARIOUS OF VOTES BEING COUNTED
  • Embargoed: 13th August 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA6EGF6JKYEXE8VJXN8R6CQLPGA
  • Story Text: Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc suffers huge defeat in upper house elections as prediocted by local TV exit poll predictions. But Abe says he will stay on.
    Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling conservative camp suffered a devastating defeat in upper house elections on Sunday (July 29), a result that could well force him from office and paralyse policy-making.
    Voters hammered Abe's coalition after a string of government scandals and gaffes and the bungling of pension records but he had decided to stay in his post, Japanese media reported.
    Abe's coalition had lost its majority in the upper house, NHK said, in its first nationwide electoral test since he took office 10 months ago pledging to boost Japan's security profile and rewrite its pacifist constitution.
    NHK said its exit polls showed that the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its partner, New Komeito, winning between 39 and 55 seats -- far short of the 64 needed to keep their majority in the upper house, where half of the 242 seats were up for grabs.
    The head of the LDP election strategy Yoshio Yatsu told NHK he believed there were too many factors against the ruling coalition party, "There was a headwind against us. Pension problems, money and politics scandals and others problems were against us. Those that used to support the LDP may have decided to teach us a lesson," Yoshio Yatsu said during NHK's election coverage.
    Abe's coalition will not be ousted from government by a loss in the upper house, since it has a huge majority in the more powerful lower chamber, which elects the premier.
    But, with the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan on track to become the biggest party in the chamber, laws will be hard to enact, threatening policy deadlock.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register