Christopher Jue/European Pressphoto Agency
Japanese poll workers counted ballots at a polling station in Tokyo during parliamentary elections on Sunday.
TOKYO — Japan’s voters handed a landslide victory to the Liberal Democratic Party in national parliamentary elections on Sunday, giving power back to the conservative party that had governed Japan for decades until a historic defeat three years ago.
In a chaotic election crowded with new parties making sweeping promises, from abolishing nuclear power after the Fukushima accident to creating an American-style federal system, the Liberal Democrats prevailed with their less radical vision of reviving the recession-bound economy and standing up to China. A victory would all but ensure that the Liberal Democratic leader, Shinzo Abe, a former prime minister who is one Japan’s most outspoken nationalists, would be able to form a new government.
Some here saw the victory pointing to a greater willingness by this long pacifist nation to accept Mr. Abe’s calls for a stronger military at a time when Japan faces an intensifying showdown with China over disputed islands.
However, the dominant view of Sunday’s vote was that it was not so much a weakening of Japan’s desire for drastic change, or a swing to an anti-Chinese right, as a rebuke of the incumbent Democrats. They swept aside the Liberal Democrats with bold vows to overhaul Japan’s sclerotic postwar order, only to disappoint voters by failing to deliver on economic improvements. Mr. Abe acknowledged as much, saying that his party had simply ridden a wave of public disgust in the failures of his opponents.
“We recognize that this was not a restoration of confidence in the Liberal Democratic Party, but a rejection of three years of incompetent rule by the Democratic Party,” Mr. Abe, 58, told reporters. Now, his party will be left to address deepening public frustration on a host of issues, including a contracting economy and a teetering pension system.
In the powerful lower house, the Liberal Democrats held a commanding lead with 294 of the 480 seats up for grabs. That would be almost a mirror image of the results in 2009, when the Democrats won 308 seats.
In the current election, a dozen parties fielded a total of 1,504 candidates, the largest number ever. But in a sign of the election’s failure to excite, only 59 percent of voters cast ballots, one of the lowest turnouts on record.
The Democrats suffered a crushing defeat, with just 57 seats, putting them only four seats ahead of the largest new party, the Japan Restoration Party, started by Osaka’s popular mayor. It was a huge setback for the Democrats, whose landmark victory three years ago ended the Liberal Democrats’ virtual one-party monopoly on power, and seemed to herald the start of a competitive two-party democracy.
Taking responsibility for the loss, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda resigned as head of the Democratic Party, despite holding on to to his own seat in Chiba, outside Tokyo.
“We failed to meet the people’s hopes after the change of government three years and four months ago,” he told reporters.
In a sign of how far the pendulum had swung against the incumbents, former Prime Minister Naoto Kan lost his seat in a Tokyo suburb in a tight race with a relatively unknown Liberal Democratic challenger. Other prominent party members also lost their seats in what party members conceded was a rout.
“We tried the Democratic Party for three years, and it was a total disaster,” said Hideyuki Takizawa, 52, a stockbroker voting in the Tokyo suburb of Kawagoe. He said that in the last election he voted for the Democrats, but that this time he opted for the Liberal Democrats. “I have higher hopes now in the Liberal Democratic Party, especially in foreign affairs,” he said.
The victorious Liberal Democrats take over a nation that faces deepening problems, including a ballooning national debt, a growing trade deficit and a rapidly aging population. Upon declaring victory, Mr. Abe quickly vowed to help the faltering economy by quickly passing a huge new stimulus spending bill, and called ending deflation his top priority. He also vowed to give relief to the nation’s beleaguered export sector with more aggressive steps to drive down the yen to make Japanese products cheaper abroad.
Liberal Democratic Party Returns to Power in Japan
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