TOKYO - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo AbeÂ’s coalition on Sunday suffered a crushing defeat, exit polls said, in an election that is likely to put pressure on the conservative leader to quit.Exit polls said AbeÂ’s coalition was on course to lose half of the seats it was defending in the election for the upper house, which will come under opposition control. Official results were expected later.
Public broadcaster NHK projected that the Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition won anywhere between 31 and 43 seats out of the 76 it was defending. Private broadcaster TBS put the coalitionÂ’s win at 34 seats, while Nippon Television gave a figure of 38.
Abe, who has championed building a more assertive nation proud of its past, has come under fire over a raft of scandals including the governmentÂ’s mismanagement of the pension system.
It was the first time in nine years that the Liberal Democrats lost control of a house. The party has not lost a majority in either house since 1998 elections, but SundayÂ’s defeat was on course to be even worse.
Yoshio Yatsu, LDP’s committee chief for the elections, said Abe would consult with the party on the next move. “The ballot counting has just started. We will never know until all the votes are counted,” Yatsu said. “We faced a hard battle in this election because of the scandals over the pension agency and political funds.”
The defeat does not automatically oust Abe as his Liberal Democrat-led coalition enjoys a large majority in the more powerful lower house inherited from Junichiro Koizumi. Prime ministers have traditionally quit to take responsibility for defeats in upper house polls, but Abe has no clear successor and his aides had insisted ahead of the vote that he would not consider resignation.