© Kazuhiro Nogi / AFP/Getty ImagesJapanese Prime Minister and ruling Liberal Democratic Party President Shinzo Abe, center, places a rosette on an LDP candidate's name to indicate an election victory in Tokyo on July 10, 2016.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner won a majority of contested seats in Japan's parliamentary election Sunday,
opening a path for them to amend Japan's postwar pacifist constitution.The results were also an endorsement of Abe's plans to revive Japan's flagging economy, the issue that he built his campaign around. Abe has been trying for four years to get the political support to fully implement "Abenomics," a plan for structural reform of the economy through fiscal stimulus and monetary easing.
"In the near term, the most pressing question will be finalizing a stimulus package, which will occupy the ruling coalition for the next several months," said Tobias Harris, a Japan analyst at the political risk advisory firm Teneo Intelligence.
Half of the seats in the upper house of parliament were up for grabs in Sunday's election. Although the lower house is considered more powerful, the election was significant because it appeared to give Abe's
Liberal Democrats and their allies a two-thirds majority in both houses. Previously, they had a two-thirds majority in the lower house, but only a simple majority in the upper chamber.
With two-thirds majorities in both houses, Abe could initiate a constitutional amendment - if his parliamentary allies are on board. Harris said it seemed likely that the Komeito party, Abe's coalition partner, would block a constitutional amendment, though Abe indicated after the vote that he would push for debate in parliament.
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