LDP Secures Absolute Stable Majority Alone in Lower House

Tokyo, Nov. 1 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese ruling Liberal Democratic Party secured a single-party absolute stable majority, or 261 seats, in the House of Representatives in Sunday's election for the all-important lower chamber of the country's parliament, though down from its pre-election strength of 276 seats. The absolute stable majority will allow the LDP to dominate the chairmanships for all Lower House standing committees and take a majority of seats on each of the committees, making it easy for the coalition of the LDP and Komeito to approve bills. The two ruling parties together won 293 seats in the 465-seat Lower House. Komeito's seats totaled 32, compared with its pre-election strength of 29 seats. Of the 261 seats won by the LDP, 189 were secured in single-seat constituencies, including two endorsed after the election, and 72 in proportional representation blocs. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, also president of the LDP, will stay in office and will launch his second cabinet at a special parliamentary session seen to be convened on Nov. 10. Before the election, Kishida said his goal was for the ruling camp to win a simple majority, or 233 seats, in the Lower House. This target was far lower than the sum of the seats held by the LDP and Komeito before the election was called, at 305. "We're very grateful that people gave us a mandate," Kishida told reporters at the LDP headquarters in the early hours of Monday. Meanwhile, the prime minister said he will make a judgment about whether LDP Secretary-General Akira Amari should step down from the LDP post after hearing what he has to say. Amari, once hit by a bribery scandal, lost to an opposition candidate in his constituency and offered to resign as the ruling party's secretary-general. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, which fielded unified candidates with four other opposition parties in 213 of the Lower House's 289 single-seat constituencies, suffered a decrease in the number of its Lower House seats, to 96 from 110. "Unless we strengthen our foundations, we cannot oust a government," CDP leader Yukio Edano told a press conference Sunday night. He added that the party will analyze the results of the Lower House election before going into the election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, next summer. The Lower House election was the first parliamentary poll held nationwide since last year's outbreak of COVID-19 and since Kishida took office early this month. It therefore served as an opportunity for voters to decide whether to give a fresh mandate to Kishida's administration to deal with the viral crisis and the country's slumping economy. It was also the first Lower House general election since October 2017, meaning that the leadership of Kishida's two immediate predecessors--Shinzo Abe and Yoshihide Suga--was evaluated. A total of 1,051 candidates vied for the 465 Lower House seats--289 for single-seat constituencies and 176 under a proportional representation system in 11 regional blocs. END