Exit polls show Japan’s ruling coalition likely to lose key election

Tokyo: Exit polls show Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s ruling coalition is likely to lose a

majority in the smaller of Japan’s two parliamentary houses in a key election Sunday, worsening the country’s political instability.

Voters were deciding half of the 248 seats in the upper house, the less powerful of the two chambers in Japan’s Diet.

Ishiba has set the bar low, wanting a simple majority of 125 seats, which means his LDP and Komeito Liberal Democratic Party

and its Buddhist-backed junior coalition partner Komeito need to win 50 to add to the 75 seats they already

have.

That is a big retreat from the 141 seats they had pre-election, but media surveys predict big setbacks for Ishiba.

Exit poll results released seconds after the ballots closed Sunday night mostly showed a major setback for Ishiba’s coalition.

Japan’s NHK television projected a range of 32-51 seats for the prime minister’s coalition, while other networks projected it would win just

over 40 seats.