LDP Win General Election in Japan

安倍 晋三

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe led the Liberal Democratic Party to a sweeping victory in the general election held yesterday in Japan.

Abe will be taking up his second term as premier after resigning allegedly due to ill-health in 2007. The DPJ has been driven from government after three years in power marked by political in-fighting and the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake, which put tremendous strain on the party.

The yen weakened against the dollar and shares rose on news of Abe's win. The LDP is seeking to increase public spending through public works projects and to adopt a looser monetary policy to stimulate inflation.

Shinzo Abe is a right-wing nationalist hawk who has promised to re-write Japan's post war constitution to allow more power for the nation's Self Defense Forces, deny Japan's responsibility for the "Comfort Women" of World War II, rewrite school text books to reflect his revisionist view of history and to visit Yasukuni Shrine in any official capacity he may hold in the future. All of these policies will cause alarm among Japan's East Asian neighbors, China and the two Koreas.

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Japan Shinzo Abe politics LDP