Tokyo, August 30: The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) made history Sunday with an overwhelming victory in the general election, ending half a century of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) rule.
Exit polls indicated that the DPJ was headed toward winning more than 300 seats in the 480-seat House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the parliament.
Of the over 434 seats decided so far, the DPJ had won 293, already a comfortable majority. The LDP and the coalition partner New Komeito party suffered an historic defeat, winning only 68 seats.
The DPJ was expected to hold talks with members of its two opposition allies, the Social Democratic Party and the People’s New Party, on forming a coalition government.
“I think that the results reflected the voters’ anger against the ruling coalition,” said DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama, 62, who is expected to become the next prime minister.
“It’s important for us to implement our policies that the voters sought for,” he told reporters. A special Diet session is scheduled to convene during the week from Sep 14, when lawmakers elect the prime minister.
The record voter turnout of almost 70 percent saw voters express their clear dissatisfaction with the LDP, ending 55 years of virtual political monopoly.
LDP veteran politicians facing a humiliating end to their careers included former prime minister Toshiki Kaifu and former vice LDP president Taku Yamasaki.
Also gone were former finance minister Shoichi Nakagawa, who resigned after an embarassing performance at the Group of Seven press conference in Rome, and former foreign ministers Nobutaka Machimura and Taro Nakayama.
The party, which helped the war-ravaged Japan to rise up to become the world’s second-largest economy, has been blamed for a series of scandals, devastating pension programmes and the worst recession in the country’s post-war era.
But the DPJ has its own challenges, with almost no experience of running the government and with members from all walks of political life, such as LDP, trade unions and former social democrats.
The DPJ has vowed to cut wasteful spending and revitalise Japan’s economy by increasing household incomes and encouraging spending. But it has offered few details on how it would fulfill its promises.
Hatoyama said he plans to review the current government’s record-high stimulus package. His party’s manifesto promises to raise monthly child allowances, and to scrap both expressway tolls and gasoline taxes as part of its plan to stimulate consumer spending.
The DPJ also said it could secure funds for its proposed programmes by cutting public works projects and increasing domestic demand while at the same time holding off on a sales tax hike for the next four years.
It vowed to introduce a guaranteed minimum income for farmers, minimum pensions and tax breaks for small- and medium-sized enterprises.
But while Japan suffers a mounting national debt exceeding more than 160 percent of its gross domestic product, experts call the party’s costly policies unrealistic. The LDP has called them a “pipe dream” and said they would require “magic” to be realised.
Political centrist Hatoyama has also said he wants a more mature relationship with the US, gaining a more self-assertive voice for Japan in the international community.
With East Asian neighbours, Hatoyama foresees improvements as he plans no visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine for Japan’s war dead, such as those by previous Japanese prime ministers which drew angry protests especially from China and South Korea.
—IANS