Malacañang on Monday congratulated the victory of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party, which swept to a resounding victory in a snap election Sunday and immediately vowed to “deal firmly” with threats from North Korea that dominated the campaign.
“We wish to congratulate His Excellency Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the results of the elections this weekend,” Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said in a statement.
“This fresh mandate augurs well for the excellent Philippine-Japan ties. We have many points of collaboration with our neighbor in the North, which include economic, socio-political security and defense cooperation,” he added.
Abella said that the Philippines remains confident “that both countries’ solid and strategic partnership would continue to gain greater strength in the years to come.”
Abe’s ruling conservative coalition was on track to win more than 310 seats in the 465-seat parliament, according to a projection from Japanese public broadcaster NHK, handing the premier a two-thirds “supermajority.”
This allows nationalist Abe to propose changes to pacifist Japan’s US-imposed constitution, which forces it to renounce war and effectively limits its military to a self-defense role.
Abe said the comfortable election win had stiffened his resolve to tackle North Korea’s nuclear threat, as the key US regional ally seeks to step up pressure on Pyongyang after it fired two missiles over Japan in the space of a month.
Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) benefited from a weak and splintered opposition, with the two main parties facing him created only a matter of weeks ago.
upport for the Party of Hope founded by popular Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike fizzled after an initial blaze of publicity and was on track to win around 50 seats, according to the NHK projection with a handful still to call.
The new center-left Constitutional Democratic Party meanwhile, fared slightly better than expected but still trailed far behind Abe with a projected 50 seats. With AFP
