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Abe stays at helm despite poll setback

MANILA: Japan’s politically embattled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday retained his post despite the unprecedented setback his party suffered in the upper House elections a day earlier.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the major partner in the coalition Government, endorsed Mr. Abe’s continuance at the helm. Armed with this, he also ruled out an immediate snap general election. The coalition holds a clear majority in the more powerful lower chamber — the House of Representatives.

With one half of the 242 seats in the upper chamber — the House of Councillors — at stake in Sunday’s polling, the Opposition, led by the Democratic Party of Japan, secured an absolute majority in the entire forum.

Japanese political observers regarded the LDP-led coalition’s showing as the worst in the party’s history for the upper House stakes. And, Sunday’s poll was Mr. Abe’s first electoral test since succeeding the charismatic Junichiro Koizumi as Prime Minister.

Taking note of this political fallout, Mr. Abe told journalists in Tokyo on Monday that the people’s mandate on this occasion was a wake-up call for the LDP leaders to “reflect … and refresh our minds.”

Citing the importance of economic and constitutional reforms, which he had set out as his political agenda, he did not want to dissolve the House of Representatives at this stage. However, he was thinking of holding a snap general election “at an appropriate time.”

The general consensus among Japan watchers in the region is that a series of scandals involving his Cabinet had played a key role in Mr. Abe’s poor showing in the poll.

The “misplacement” of pension data related to nearly 50 million people, all still unidentified, was followed by political fund-raising scandals, including bid-rigging, and by the suicide of a minister.

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