Japan’s ruling LDP retains absolute majority in trust vote for PM Kishida

Tokyo, Nov 1 (EFE).- The ruling Liberal Democratic Party Monday maintained control over the lower house of the Japanese parliament, marking the fourth consecutive term for the conservative group, but with fewer seats than it held previously.

According to the latest poll results held on Sunday, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio’s LDP has won 261 seats in the 465-member house, securing an absolute majority well over the halfway mark of 233.

The ruling party thus guaranteed itself a fourth consecutive four-year term with its coalition partner, the Buddhist Komeito party, which has gone from 29 seats in 2017 to 32, adding a total of 293 seats between the two formations.

With a brute parliamentary majority, the LDP will chair and hold half of the seats on all standing committees of the parliament to ram through legislation.

However, it has won 15 less as compared to 2017.

The ruling party received a setback as its No.2, Amari Akira, suffered a loss in his single-seat constituency in the general election.

The LDP secretary-general is projected to secure a parliamentary seat through proportional representation, but he has conveyed his intention to Kishida to resign from his post.

Amari oversaw the LDP’s election campaign.

Kishida, 64, dissolved the lower house only ten days after taking office on Oct.4 and brought the polls forward rather than wait until early November.

His predecessor Yoshihide Suga resigned as the country struggled with its worst wave of coronavirus infections.

Race for leadership in the LDP resulted in the election of the new prime minister.

Voters have ousted the LDP from power twice since its founding in 1955, most recently from 2009 to 2012 by the opposition coalition, including the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

The opposition bloc advanced as a whole.

But the support for Yukio Edano of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) is dwindling.

The CDPJ has won 96 seats compared to 109 in the previous election. However, it remains the main opposition force in the country.

The best-standing opposition in the Sunday voting is the Nippon Ishin no Kai that nearly quadrupled its number of seats from 11 to 41.

Ichiro Matsui, the incumbent mayor of Osaka city, leads the conservative group, born in 2015 in the Osaka region (west of the country).

The party also rules Osaka prefecture.

According to preliminary results published on Monday by the local agency Jiji, 55.93 percent of the eligible Japanese voters exercised their franchise, slightly above the 53.68 percent in the previous elections.

However, it is below 60 percent for the fourth consecutive time since the 2012 elections. EFE