Today.Az » Politics » Japan's long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party loses election first since 55 years
31 August 2009 [09:22] - Today.Az
Japanese voters swept the opposition to a historic victory in an election on Sunday, ousting the long-ruling conservative party and handing the novice Democrats the job of reviving a struggling economy, Reuters reported.
The win by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) ends a half-century of almost unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and breaks a deadlock in parliament, ushering in a government that has promised to focus spending on consumers, cut wasteful budget outlays and reduce the power of bureaucrats.
But the untested party will have to move quickly to keep support among voters worried about a record jobless rate and a rapidly aging society that is inflating social security costs.
"The people are angry with politics now and the ruling coalition. We felt a great sense of people wanting change for their livelihoods and we fought this election for a change in government," said Democratic Party leader Yukio Hatoyama.
Media projections showed the Democrats set for a landslide win, possibly taking two-thirds of the seats in parliament's powerful 480-member lower house. That matched earlier forecasts of a drubbing for Prime Minister Taro Aso's LDP.
The ruling party loss ended a three-way partnership between the LDP, big business and bureaucrats that turned Japan into an economic juggernaut after the country's defeat in World War Two. That strategy foundered when Japan's "bubble" economy burst in the late 1980s and growth has stagnated since.
"This is about the end of the post-war political system in Japan," said Gerry Curtis, a Japanese expert at Columbia University. "It marks the end of one long era, and the beginning of another one about which there is a lot of uncertainty."
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