Upper House Election Endorses Shinzo Abe

Past midnight in Tokyo, July 10, the Upper House seats are nearing a denouement with Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party having battled their way through the 17-day campaign to a commanding victory. His LDP and its partner Komeito now nearing a controversial two-thirds majority in the house.

The opposition coalition joined by the Japan Communist Party had barely managed to run unified candidates to confront with LDP in the 32 single-seat constituencies. The results,12-20, suggest the JCP had ironically pulled the legs of the coalition itself rather than that of the Abe regime.

Abe has come close to gaining his LDP a working majority (57) with a total of 54 seats, and will probably enjoy the upper hand of their coalition party Komeito on some of the sensitive issues facing his regime, not to mention constitutional amendment.

Ironically, however, the conventional, agriculture-based LDP has done rather poorly in the single-seat constituencies up in the farming prefectures up north - Aomori, Niigata, Yamagata, Fukushima, Iwate, etc. and in Okinawa where its candidate succumbed to a Democratic Party opponent.

The Osaka Restoration Group, a party close to LDP on constitutional issues, has collected 7 seats to add to the existing 5 to become comfortably eligible to introduce bills in the house.

A two-thirds majority in the 242-seat Upper House is 162, and a total of 78 is enough to make it with the existing 84 of the 4 pro-amendment parties put together.

At the end of the day, Abe and his LDP has managed to wrap up the Upper House election this time at his will, so to say, to pave way for pushing his Abenomics farther forward.

Katsuya Okada and his Democratic Party have meanwhile learned in a hard way what it costs to dance with the communists.

An opposition coalition now some kind of fantasy, Japan's political scene is due for a change. (Nathan Shiga)