Japan elections delivering a defeat to new prime minister
Newly minted Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s Democratic Party appeared headed for defeat in parliamentary elections Sunday, a blow that threatened to further weaken Kan’s tentative hold on power.
The Democratic Party of Japan was expected to win just 47 seats, far short of the 54 needed for the Democrats and their tiny coalition partner, the People’s New Party, to keep their combined majority in the parliament’s upper house.
While the Democrats hold a majority in Japan’s more powerful lower chamber, Sunday’s poor poll showing undermines their ability to control the national agenda in the world’s second-biggest economy beset by massive public debt and a foreign policy malaise over the presence of U.S. troops on the southern island of Okinawa.
