Japanese parliamentary election started vote counting late Sunday, immediately after voting at all polling stations across the country ended at 8:00 p.m. (1100 GMT).
Pre-election surveys showed that the election of lawmakers to occupy 121 six-year seats in the House of Councilors may turn out to be a defeat for the ruling bloc to maintain majority in the chamber.
As of 6:00 p.m. (0700 GMT), the turnout rate, which excludes absentee ballots, stood at 39.98 percent, down 0.52 percentage point from the July 2004 election, the internal ministry said. Absentee ballots cast until Saturday totaled near 10.8 million, or 10.33 percent of registered voters.
Voting started on Sunday at 7:00 a.m. (2200 GMT, Saturday) at over 51,000 polling stations across the country. Final results of the election are due out early Monday.
Around 100 million Japanese citizens aged 20 or older are eligible to vote on Sunday, to elect lawmakers for 121 six-year seats in the House of Councilors, out of 377 candidates.
Of the 121 seats, 73 are from single- or multi-seat prefectural constituencies and the rest 48 are from the national proportional representation block.
Before Sunday's election, the ruling coalition of the LDP and the New Komeito party jointly held 133 seats. Of the total, 57 seats and another of a pro-LDP independent are uncontested this time. Thus the two parties need to secure at least 64 seats to control the upper house.
The national election comes just 10 months after Abe, 52, took over and pledged to bolster Japan's global security profile, rewrite its U.S.-drafted constitution and nurture economic growth.
According to recent media surveys, Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is fighting an uphill battle to maintain majority, while major opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) seems to have gathered momentum to fight for the controlling power in the House of Councilors.
As the ruling coalition has a commanding majority in the lower house of the parliament, a failure to maintain majority in the upper house would not immediately reverse the political picture. However, losing the battle would definitely add pressure to Abe, whose support rate has been dropping due to pension-recording errors, as well as scandals and controversial remarks involving his Cabinet ministers.
In 1998, the then premier Ryutaro Hashimoto was forced to resign after suffering a major setback in the election. Japan's top government spokesman Yasuhisa Shiozaki suggested on Friday that Abe does not intend to step down even the election turned out to be a defeat for the governing bloc.
If DPJ wins enough seats to become the largest bloc in the upper house, it would be the first time that a party other than the LDP has seized the most seats in the chamber since the LDP was established in 1955.
In that case, a DPJ lawmaker would become president of the upper house. Former president Chikage Ogi retired from her post on Friday.
Source: Xinhua
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