Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has declared victory in election, with his ruling coalition winning a majority of seats in Japan’s upper house. Together with the pro-constitutional revisionists, his coalition has gained a two-thirds majority of the 121-seat upper house. Abe’s junior coalition partner, Komeito, fared well, winning 14 seats compared with nine before the election.

• Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) fell one short of winning a simple majority, which would have increased its clout within the coalition. Earlier projections had shown it was within their grasp for the first time since 1989.
•  Nevertheless, the overall victory will still bolster Abe’s grip over the conservative party that he led back to power in 2012 promising to reboot the economy with hyper-easy monetary policy, fiscal spending and reforms.
• Abe said he would reshuffle his cabinet but did not say when or how. There has been speculation that Abe might replace Finance Minister Taro Aso, 75, among others.

Shinzo Abe

• Shinzo Abe is the current Prime Minister of Japan, re-elected to the position in December 2012. Abe is also the President of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
• Hailing from a politically prominent family, at age 52, Abe became Japan’s youngest post-war prime minister, and the first to be born after World War II, when he was elected by a special session of the National Diet in September 2006.