TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party suffered a historic defeat in an election in the Japanese capital on Sunday (July 2), signalling trouble ahead for the premier, who has suffered from slumping support because of a favouritism scandal.
On the surface, the Tokyo Metropolitan assembly election was a referendum on Governor Yuriko Koike’s year in office, but the dismal showing for Abe’s party is also a stinging rebuke of his 4-1/2-year-old administration.
Koike, a media-savvy ex-defense minister and former LDP member, took office a year ago as the first female governor in the capital, defying the local LDP chapter to run and promising to reform governance of a megacity with a population of 13.7 million and an economy bigger than the Netherlands’.
Abe, who was jeered at one of his public speech during the election, vowed he would work to regain public trust. The LDP has been hit by a scandal over suspicions – denied by the premier – that Abe helped a friend’s business get favoured treatment. It has also been hurt by cabinet minister gaffes, and by a perception among many voters that Abe’s administration has grown arrogant after more than four years in power.
Koike’s Tokyo Citizens First party and its allies took 79 seats in the 127-seat assembly. The LDP won a mere 23, its worst-ever results, compared with 57 before the election.
