: Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida Defies Forecasts and Keeps a Majority in the Election #WorldNEWS (Bloomberg) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida firmed up his month-old government

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Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida Defies Forecasts and Keeps a Majority in the Election #WorldNEWS
(Bloomberg) — 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.
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Projections published by Yomiuri and Nikkei on Friday had shown that Kishida, who took over from unpopular former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, might struggle to maintain his rule without the help of junior coalition partner Komeito, which now has 32 seats in parliament — gaining three in the vote.
“The LDP won a majority and received confidence in this vote, and for this I am grateful,” Kishida told reporters.
The election nonetheless leaves the LDP with its slimmest majority since Shinzo Abe led the right-leaning party out of the opposition and back into government in 2012. Fewer votes may make it harder for Kishida to push through his plans to raise wages, fight inequality and spend big on economic stimulus and defense when parliament returns later this month.
Kishida will face pressure to rebuild the cabinet’s approval rating ahead of an upper house election next year. The former foreign minister has struggled to catch on with the public after LDP insiders selected him over a more popular rival, former virus czar Taro Kono, in a leadership race in September.
Still, the LDP’s longtime alliance with Komeito will give Kishida a significant cushion of support for certain issues. The premier lowered expectations ahead of the vote, saying his goal was to win a majority for the coalition.
“I think he’ll be fine,” said Amy Catalinac, an assistant politics professor at New York University who has written about Japan’s electoral system. “As soon as he became prime minister, he defined winning the election as securing that bare majority. He’s set himself up to be fine. ”
Kishida will have at least one personnel change to make. The Mainichi newspaper reported he is set to replace his No. 2 party official — Secretary General Akira Amari — who lost his constituency race, though he kept a parliamentary seat through the proportional representation system.
The distancing of Amari, who is seen as a close ally of Abe, could indicate less emphasis on economic growth and more on the distribution of its fruits, according to Naomi Muguruma, a senior analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.

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