综合一区欧美国产,99国产麻豆免费精品,九九精品黄色录像,亚洲激情青青草,久久亚洲熟妇熟,中文字幕av在线播放,国产一区二区卡,九九久久国产精品,久久精品视频免费

   

Voting in parliamentary election starts in Japan

(Xinhua\Reuters)
Updated: 2007-07-29 10:20

           

People fill in their ballot papers for a Japanese upper house election at a polling station in Tokyo July 29, 2007. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a last-ditch effort on Saturday to woo voters ahead of an upper house election in which his ruling bloc looks set to lose its majority, a result that could cost him his job. [Reuters]

TOKYO - Voting began Sunday morning in Japan's upper house election, the first national election since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe formed his cabinet in September.

Voting started at 7:00 a.m. (2200 GMT, Saturday) across Japan and ends at 8:00 p.m. (1100 GMT) in most stations.

The election for half the seats in parliament's 242-member upper house 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 seems to have gathered momentum to fight for the controlling power in the House of Councilors.

Half of the seats in the upper chamber are up for grabs every three years in Japan. A total of 377 candidates are contesting for 121 seats at stake this time.

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.

According to the ministry of internal affairs, some 8.82 million absentee ballots have been cast as of Friday. The number of eligible voters in Japan stands at around 104 million.

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 prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto was forced to resign after suffering a major setback in the election. Japan's top government spokesman Yasuhisa Shiozaki suggested Friday that Abe does not intend to step down even the election turned out to be a defeat for the governing bloc.


123456  


Top World News  
Today's Top News  
Most Commented/Read Stories in 48 Hours
津南区| 长海县| 大宁县| 乾安县| 龙口市| 苏尼特左旗| 正安县| 老河口市| 光山县| 双牌县| 和平县| 永州市| 吴忠市| 克拉玛依市| 托克托县| 海林市| 红河县| 松阳县| 富平县| 灵宝市| 博乐市| 西盟| 乌审旗| 古蔺县| 天等县| 手游| 巩义市| 方城县| 碌曲县| 石楼县| 海南省| 舟山市| 汉沽区| 蓝山县| 大荔县| 麦盖提县| 沙田区| 临高县| 额尔古纳市| 安新县| 海南省|