Voting is underway in Japan’s general election and polls indicate prime minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition will win handily, possibly even retaining its two-thirds majority in the more powerful lower house of parliament. “I buy into prime minister Abe’s ability to handle diplomacy,” said Naomi Mochida, a 51-year-old woman listening to Abe campaign in Saitama prefecture, outside of Tokyo. Support for Abe’s Cabinet, the standard measure of a government’s popularity in Japan, had bounced back from summertime lows. Koike, the party leader, decided not to run for the 465-seat lower house and will not even be in Japan on election day. That could make Abe the longest-serving prime minister in the post-second world war era.

Source: The Guardian October 21, 2017 23:37 UTC