Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition is expected to secure a big victory in Sunday's upper house election, surveys showed on Wednesday, resolving six years of parliamentary stalemate and further weakening the opposition.

Support for Abe's Liberal Democratic Party has consistently far outstripped that for other parties in the run-up to the election, buoyed by hopes that his push for hyper-easy monetary policy, public spending and structural reforms would reinvigorate Japan's economy.

Half of the upper house's 242 seats come up for election every three years.

Voter preference polls taken between Sunday and Tuesday published by the Kyodo news agency, the Nikkei and Yomiuri dailies showed the LDP and its coalition partner, the New Komeito, were likely to win more than 70 of the 121 seats up for grabs.

That would secure a majority in the upper house for Abe's bloc. It would also end the "twisted parliament", in which the opposition controls the upper house, giving it the ability to hamper policy implementation.

Reuters

(China Daily USA 07/18/2013 page8)