Japan's government looks to win majority in Diet

Exit polls in Japan indicated a landslide victory for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's coalition government in Sunday's parliamentary elections, UPI reported. Japan's Kyodo news service said Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the New Komeito, would likely win a majority on the House of Councillors, the upper house of the Diet that has been controlled by the opposition for several years. Kyodo projected the Abe coalition would win 70 of the 121 seats being contested in the house, which has a total of 242 seats. The Mainichi Shinbum said the main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, could lose up to half of the 44 seats it holds. The newspaper said the likely outcome suggested Abe would soon have the political support he needed to effectively tackle some big-ticket items, including revisions to the constitution that would open the door to an expansion of the military in order to counter potential threats in Asia.