Japan votes in parliamentary elections

Voters in Japan have begun casting ballots in a key poll for half of the seats in the country's upper house of parliament.

Polling began at 7:00am local time on Sunday (22:00 GMT on Saturday), and?are expected to close at 8:00pm (11:00 GMT). Final results will be known late on Sunday or early Monday.

"I want to see a stable government. That's the Liberal Democratic Party," said 76-year-old Hiroshi Miyamoto, after casting his ballot for Abe's pro-business, conservative party in the western Tokyo suburb of Hachioji.

Voter turnout stood at 13.73 percent as of 11:00am local time (02:00 GMT).

With approval ratings well over 60 percent seven months after he took office as prime minister, Shinzo Abe's ruling party is expecting to further strengthen its grip on power.

Half of the upper legislative chamber's 242 seats are up for grabs, in what is expected to be the last national election for three years.

Economic reforms

Control of both chambers will remove political obstacles to Abe's agenda, which includes pushing through reforms to tackle the country's underperforming economy.

They point to the need for reform of the labour market to make it easier for firms to hire and fire workers, participation in a huge free trade pact and a rise in consumption tax, which economists say will help to slow the pace of growth in the already sky-high national debt.

The reforms are the third instalment of an economic policy plan dubbed "Abenomics" that has already seen a slew of government spending and a flood of easy money from the central bank.

Those moves pushed the value of the yen down and sent the stock market soaring, bringing cheer to some sectors of corporate Japan.

However, Abe's detractors say Abenomics is a ruse, part of a tactical power grab that will see the PM return to his conservative social agenda once he has control over both houses of parliament.

They fear this will mean a loosening of Japan's constitutional commitment to pacifism, a boosting of the military and a more strident tone in already-strained relations with China and South Korea, both of which have territorial disputes with Tokyo.

Whatever Abe's intentions, the predicted swing towards his Liberal Democratic Party and their junior coalition allies could give Japan its first long-term prime minister since Junichiro Koizumi, who ruled for the first half of last decade.

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Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2013/07/2013720235127971123.html

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