Japan's ruling coalition breathed a sigh of relief yesterday after its candidates won in local elections, but newspapers warned that the races still showed wide voter disenchantment.
Candidates supported by embattled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won nine of Sunday's 11 elections for provincial governors that were head-to-head races with the opposition.
Tokyo's LDP-backed Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who is famous for bashing China and making other nationalist remarks, won a third term by a landslide, topping his closest competitor by 21 points in a 14-candidate race.
"We have to use [the election results] to boost ourselves," chief government spokesman Yasuhisa Shiozaki told a news conference.
"Following the results, we want to do our best to pass key legislation by uniting the ruling coalition," Shiozaki said.
The elections came three months ahead of polls for the upper house, the first nationwide parliamentary contest for Abe.
Abe, at 52 Japan's youngest post-World War II premier, is battling approval ratings below 40 percent due in part to questions about his authority after a series of scandals and gaffes involving close aides.
"The ruling coalition will be relieved by watching its candidates win," the best-selling Yomiuri Shimbun said in an editorial.
The main opposition Democratic Party "is not in good shape and it will have to make an urgent review of the situation ahead of the upper-house elections," it said.
But the Mainichi Shimbun noted that incumbent governors won in all races they contested and that polls show voters are paying less attention to party affiliation.
"The losers were the political parties," said a Mainichi editorial.
The major parties "should face this result squarely and review the results, as if they fail to regain people's interest they are going to suffer serious defeats in the upper-house elections," it said.
Ishihara, a novelist turned politician, refused the outright endorsement of the LDP, which has ruled almost continuously since 1955.
Newspapers said voters awarded Ishihara for his success at pushing through policies despite his controversial remarks.
"It can be said that he outdistanced his rivals by demonstrating his brass and daring to speak against the central government, along with his ability to get things done," the liberal Asahi Shimbun said.
Ishihara has rammed through policies such as banning diesel engines to improve air quality. His current pet project is bringing the Summer Olympics to Tokyo in 2016.
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