Japan’s Kishida Defies Forecasts, Keeps Majority in Election
- LDP retains grip on power after general election Sunday
- Premier left with slimmer margin to push through policies
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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida firmed up his month-old government with an election that saw his Liberal Democratic Party avoid the worst-case scenarios that opinion polls had suggested beforehand.
The LDP won 261 seats to preserve its outright majority in the 465-seat lower house, results on Monday showed, dropping from the 276 seats it held when parliament was dissolved. Stocks gained on the outcome, with the benchmark Topix rising as much as 1.8% on the morning and the blue-chip Nikkei 225 Stock Average climbing more than 2%. The yen weakened 0.2% as of 12:54 p.m. in Tokyo.