TOKYO — Japan’s voters on Sunday handed power back to the Liberal Democratic Party, the colossus that until 2009 ran post-World War II Japan nearly without interruption, and that now reinherits the major economic problems no leader in Tokyo has yet been able to fix.
The parliamentary election, based on projections after the polls closed, will lead to sweeping change: Public broadcaster NHK said the LDP will grab between 275 and 310 spots in the 480-seat lower house, up from the 118 it had before. The ousted Democratic Party of Japan will win between 55 and 77 seats, down from 230, a fierce rebuke of a party that guided the country into another recession and into a bitter territorial dispute with China.
Take a look at some of the week’s best photographs from around the globe.
WorldViews
Max Fisher
It's hard to appreciate just how much the U.S. stands out on firearms until you look at these comparative charts.
Max Fisher
Americans are 20 times as likely to be killed by a gun than is someone from another developed country.
Olga Khazan
What happens when countries have fewer guns?
Max Fisher
Thousands of Americans, including those at Sandy Hook Elementary, are killed by guns every year. Japan has almost zero gun-related deaths, but it came at a cost.
But the election also reinstates a familiar face, with nationalist Shinzo Abe — party president of the LDP — becoming prime minister for the second time, following a turbulent 366-day stint in 2006 and 2007. Abe replaces Yoshihiko Noda, marking Japan’s 14th leadership change in two decades. The turnover rate reflects the many difficulties, and few easy policy solutions, facing an aging nation with a shrinking workforce and the industrialized world’s highest debt burden.
Japan has also been saddled with long periods of political paralysis, something the LDP will try to overcome by quickly forming a coalition with New Komeito — and perhaps another party if necessary — that will yield a 320-seat veto-proof “supermajority.” That would help the LDP pass bills even without support of the DPJ-led upper house.
When it last ruled, the LDP was a centrist party, famous for support from rural areas and pork barrel spending on construction projects. But Abe has helped steer his party farther to the right, vowing on the campaign trail to “take back Japan.” Political analysts say his second premiership will reveal how his priorities to boost military spending and revise the pacifist constitution jibe with those of the country itself.
The parliamentary election, based on projections after the polls closed, will lead to sweeping change: Public broadcaster NHK said the LDP will grab between 275 and 310 spots in the 480-seat lower house, up from the 118 it had before. The ousted Democratic Party of Japan will win between 55 and 77 seats, down from 230, a fierce rebuke of a party that guided the country into another recession and into a bitter territorial dispute with China.
Take a look at some of the week’s best photographs from around the globe.
WorldViews
Max Fisher It's hard to appreciate just how much the U.S. stands out on firearms until you look at these comparative charts.
Max Fisher Americans are 20 times as likely to be killed by a gun than is someone from another developed country.
Olga Khazan
What happens when countries have fewer guns?
Max Fisher Thousands of Americans, including those at Sandy Hook Elementary, are killed by guns every year. Japan has almost zero gun-related deaths, but it came at a cost.
But the election also reinstates a familiar face, with nationalist Shinzo Abe — party president of the LDP — becoming prime minister for the second time, following a turbulent 366-day stint in 2006 and 2007. Abe replaces Yoshihiko Noda, marking Japan’s 14th leadership change in two decades. The turnover rate reflects the many difficulties, and few easy policy solutions, facing an aging nation with a shrinking workforce and the industrialized world’s highest debt burden.
Japan has also been saddled with long periods of political paralysis, something the LDP will try to overcome by quickly forming a coalition with New Komeito — and perhaps another party if necessary — that will yield a 320-seat veto-proof “supermajority.” That would help the LDP pass bills even without support of the DPJ-led upper house.
When it last ruled, the LDP was a centrist party, famous for support from rural areas and pork barrel spending on construction projects. But Abe has helped steer his party farther to the right, vowing on the campaign trail to “take back Japan.” Political analysts say his second premiership will reveal how his priorities to boost military spending and revise the pacifist constitution jibe with those of the country itself.