Under the shadow of the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, one of Japan’s leading political figures and the longest-serving in office, the population went to the polls on Sunday (10) to elect 125 representatives to the Upper House of Parliament.
In total, the House has 248 members, but elections are held for half of the seats every three years. Projections by broadcaster NHK suggest that the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), led by Abe and the current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, should increase their majority in the disputed seats.
The party held 55 seats in this contingent, and is projected to win between 59 and 69. The scenario improves for Kishida, given that, if you add up the seats that should go to the Komeito party, a minor ally of the LDP, the number could be between 69 and 83 vacancies.
Two hours before the end of voting hours, the turnout rate was 27.4% —voting is optional in the country.
The election is important because it is seen as a kind of referendum on government approval — a test in which Kishida appears to have passed. The support could give the prime minister a greater opportunity to increase the country’s military spending and revise the country’s peace-loving constitution, promises made by Abe but never delivered.
Exit polls suggest that parties open to supporting the Charter’s revision should retain a two-thirds majority in the upper house. The population, opinion polls show, is overwhelmingly in favor of structuring a more robust military force. “Kishida now has the green light for this,” Robert Ward, an analyst at the think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Reuters.
According to NHK, the ruling coalition and two other parties in favor of change add up to 163 seats in the House, taking into account mid-term politicians, the level of support necessary to approve a proposed constitutional amendment to be submitted to a referendum. national.
The defeat in World War II and the devastation caused by the atomic bombs relegated to Japan a pacifist legislation that, however, was pressed for changes in the last decade. This is largely due to the rise of China, which has led politicians like Shinzo Abe to call for offensive rearmament.
The latest campaign events and also the polling centers were marked by unusual policing in the country, motivated by the murder of Abe, who was shot dead in the city of Nara while participating in a rally by LDP candidate Kei Sato – projections, by the way, indicate that he will get a seat in the Upper House.
Nara police said on Sunday that they had seized a motorcycle and another vehicle belonging to the murder suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, 41. wooden boards with perforations, which he said he used to test the homemade weapon he used.
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