Japan’s Abe Falls Short of Supermajority in Election Win
- NHK projects Abe will miss out on securing supermajority
- Abe plans to press ahead with sales tax hike in October
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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe claimed victory in Sunday’s upper house election while falling short of securing a supermajority to quickly push through his plans to make the first revisions to the country’s pacifist constitution.
With the final vote tally not yet complete, Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and its partner Komeito have won at least 69 of the 124 seats up for grabs, public broadcaster NHK projected. Given the 70 seats they hold in the uncontested section of the chamber, this amounts to a simple majority of the total 245 seats.