Election gamble pays off, Abe win secures supermajority

Shinzo Abe’s was ruling coalition was on track for a big election win, retaining its supermajority.

Voting in typhoon conditions in in Tokyo yesterday.

Japan’s centre-right Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s bold bid for a ­record term in office by calling a snap election paid off yesterday when his ruling coalition headed for a supermajority, winning an expected 311 of the 465 seats in the parliament.

Mr Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and its smaller coalition partner Komeito appeared to have secured the two-thirds majority they needed in order to change the pacifist post-World War II constitution to permit the Japan Self-Defence Force to be deployed to support allies overseas.

Last year’s upper house election gave the coalition the two- thirds majority it needed in the House of Councillors, backed by two small parties also supportive of constitutional change.

Voters had to brave severe winds and rain to vote, as Typhoon Yan hit the coast from the Pacific and started heading north during the evening. Millions heeded advice and voted early to defy the storm.

Mr Abe, 63, is heading ­towards history, his third consecutive four-year term setting him up to overtake Eisaku Sato as Japan’s longest-­serving prime minister.

His decisive win was made easier by the division of the opposition between two new parties, the centre-right Party of Hope led by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike — who did not stand for parliament — and the centre-left Constitutional Democratic Party led by former Democratic Party deputy leader Yukio Edano.

The Party of Hope was projected to win about 50 seats. The CDP fared slightly better than expected but was still far behind the ruling coalition.

The threat posed by North Korea, which has fired two missiles over Japan this year, helped drive support for Mr Abe, who is perceived as resolute in facing the challenge from the rapidly nuclear­ising neighbour.

Mr Abe is expected to convene a session of the Diet in about 10 days, when the ruling coalition members will vote him back into office as prime minister. Japan will have a freshly reaffirmed government in place to greet US President Donald Trump when he visits from November 5 — just as will China, in its own very different manner following the conclusion this week of its five-yearly communist party congress.

Mr Abe is expected to stay on course with his “Abenomics” program to reinvigorate the economy through fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reform, recently given a vote of confidence by the Tokyo share market reaching its highest level in 20 years.

Global ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has raised its 2017 GDP growth forecast for Japan from 1.3 per cent to 1.6 per cent.

Manuel Panagiotopoulos, the managing director of think-tank Australian and Japanese Economic Intelligence, said Mr Abe’s win meant reconfirmation of the “Abenomics” program.

This is a time in international politics when personalities matter, he said. “Abe has shown exemplary political instincts and leadership, both at home and abroad. He has developed excellent relationships with Donald Trump of the US and Narendra Modi of India, critically important to preserve a balanced international order.”

He said Mr Abe’s success would provide momentum for the survival of the Trans-­Pacific Partnership, ­struggling to reconfigure itself — with Japan and Australia as core members — since the withdrawal of the US.

At the last election almost three years ago, the LDP won 290 of 475 lower house seats.