TOKYO: Japan’s ruling coalition is set to lose its parliamentary majority, according to exit polls Sunday’s (October 27) general election showed.increasing uncertainty over the government structure of the world’s fourth largest economy.

A poll by national broadcaster NHK showed the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has ruled Japan for most of its post-war history, and junior coalition partner Komeito would win between 174 and 254 of the 465 seats in the lower room. of the Japanese parliament.

The main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) will win between 128 and 191 seats. The result may force the LDP or CDPJ to enter into power-sharing deals with other parties to form a government.

The uncertainty comes nine days before US voters choose a new president and as Japan faces economic headwinds and increasingly strained relations with neighboring China.

A poll by Nippon TV showed the ruling coalition would win 198 seats to the CDPJ’s 157, both well short of the 233 seats needed to reach a majority, as voters punished Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s party over a financing scandal and inflation.

“I think these results are the result of a relentless verdict on the LDP … which comes from various factors, including how we failed to solve the problem of political money from two winters ago,” Shinjiro Koizumi, LDP election. boss, NHK said.

Ishiba called the snap election immediately after being elected party leader last month, hoping to win a public mandate for prime minister. His predecessor, Fumio Kishida, resigned after his support fell amid anger over the cost of living and a scandal involving unregistered donations to lawmakers.

The PLD has held an outright majority since returning to power in 2012 after a brief period of opposition rule.

Polls suggest deals with smaller parties such as the Democratic People’s Party (DPP) or Japan’s Innovation Party could prove key to whoever emerges victorious.

The DPP is expected to win between 20 and 33 seats and the Japan Innovation Party between 28 and 45 seats, according to the NHK exit poll.

But both propose policies at odds with the LDP line.

The DPP is calling for Japan’s 10 percent sales tax to be halved until real wages rise, a policy disapproved of by the LDP, while the Innovation Party has promised stricter rules on donations to clean up politics.

The Innovation Party opposes further interest rate hikes, and the DPP leader said the Bank of Japan may have rushed to raise rates as the central bank wants to gradually wean Japan off decades of massive monetary stimulus.

Political infighting could roil markets and be a headache for the Bank of Japan if Ishiba chooses a partner who favors keeping interest rates close to zero when the central bank wants to raise them gradually.

Japanese shares fell 2.7 percent against the benchmark Nikkei last week after opinion polls indicated for the first time that the ruling coalition could lose its majority.