Japan’s ruling coalition won a sweeping supermajority in the country’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, which would enable it to fulfill former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s enduring ambition to reform the country’s pacifist constitution.
The elections were held two days after Abe’s shocking assassination at a campaign stop geared toward winning the parliament’s upper house.
Abe resigned from his post as prime minister in 2020 — to be succeeded by current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida — but remained an influential figure in the two leaders’ shared Liberal Democratic Party.
The Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partners won 87 seats in Sunday’s election, surpassing the 70 needed to form a supermajority.
Abe’s assassination seems to have led to a boost in voter turnout, which came in at over 52%, above 2019’s 49%.
The supermajority will allow the coalition to change Japan’s constitution, which calls for the renunciation of war, opening up the potential for Japan to become a military power.
“I have the responsibility to take over the ideas of former Prime Minister Abe,” Kishida said at a campaign event on Saturday.