Tokyo: Conservative ex-premier Shinzo Abe will get a second chance to lead Japan after his Liberal Democratic Party surged back to power in Sunday's election, but he must move swiftly to bolster a sagging economy and manage strained ties with China to avoid the fate of his short-lived predecessors. Abe, whose party won by a landslide just three years after a crushing defeat, is due to meet the leader of its small ally on Monday to cement their alliance and confirm economic steps to boost an economy now in its fourth recession since 2000.
The victory by the LDP, which had ruled Japan for most of the past 50 years before it was ousted in 2009, will usher in a government pledged to a tough stance in a territorial row with China, a pro-nuclear energy policy despite the 2011 Fukushima disaster and a potentially risky recipe for hyper-easy monetary policy and big fiscal spending to boost growth. Projections by TV broadcasters showed that the LDP had won at least 294 seats in the 480-member lower house, while its ally the New Komeito party took 31 seats.
That gives them a two-thirds majority needed to overrule parliament's upper house in most matters. Since 2007, successive governments have been hamstrung by a "twisted parliament" where ruling coalitions lacked control over the upper house, which could block most legislation.
While investors have already pushed the yen lower and share prices higher in anticipation of an LDP victory and Abe's economic
10:31 AM, Dec 17, 2012
Tokyo: Japan voted on Sunday in an election expected to return the conservative Liberal Democratic Party to power after a three-year hiatus, giving ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a chance to push his hawkish security agenda and radical economic recipe. Polls opened at 0700 am (2200 GMT) and will close at 8 pm (1100 GMT), when major TV broadcasters will issue exit polls forecasting results. An LDP win would usher in...
11:44 AM, Dec 16, 2012
Tokyo: Japan Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda is to be voted in on Tuesday as the country's sixth prime minister in five years amid doubts he can unite his fractious ruling party while tackling myriad economic ills and a nuclear crisis. Noda, a 54-year-old fiscal hawk who wants to curb Japan's huge public debt, was elected head of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in a bruising run-off. He had...
09:48 AM, Aug 30, 2011
Opposition Democratic Party of Japan set to win polls, promises to change country. ... 
