Japanese Governing Party Wins Control of Upper House

Via the BBC:  Japan election: Abe ‘wins key upper house vote’

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has won a majority in the upper house, exit polls suggest.

His Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner New Komeito were set to get at least 71 of the 121 seats being contested, broadcaster NHK projected.

This would give him control of both houses of parliament for the first time in six years.

Japan’s upper house is not as powerful as is the case in the US, but has blocking powers.  As such, this is a significant win for the Abe government.

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Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. walt moffett says:

    Sounds like things may get a bit more tense over the Daioyu Islands.

  2. Paludicola says:

    What the Liberal Democratic Party really wants is a 2/3rds super-majority, which they already have in the House of Representatives, because that’s the threshold for putting their unappetizing package of constitutional amendments to a referendum. I think that their coalition partners, the Kōmeitō, a lukewarm on the idea.

    For a little while there, it looked like Japan might just finally get a competitive bipartisan system, but it’s just back to the same all LDP all the time deal as before.

  3. michael reynolds says:

    I happen to be in Tokyo. My son and I watched about 20 minutes of coverage before we figured out it was politics and not a somewhat dull game show. Note to CNN: brighter colors, more slot machine sound effects, and lots of cutaways to guys yelling “Banzai!” So much better that way.