Japan’s scandal-hit ruling party fell short of a majority for the first time since 2009 in snap elections on Sunday, media projections showed, in a blow to new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
Worse still, it was touch and go whether Ishiba’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) could secure a parliamentary majority with its long-term coalition partner, Komeito.
“We are receiving severe judgment,” Ishiba told national broadcaster NHK late on Sunday, adding that voters “expressed their strong desire for the LDP to do some reflection and become a party that will act in line with the people’s will”.
Ishiba, 67, called the election after being narrowly selected last month to lead the LDP, which has governed Japan for almost all of the past 70 years.
But voters in the world’s fourth-largest economy have been rankled by rising prices and the fallout from a party slush fund scandal that helped sink previous leader Fumio Kishida.
Footage from the LDP headquarters after the polls closed on Sunday showed gloomy faces as the projections based on exit polls said Ishiba’s justice and agriculture ministers were likely to lose their seats.