Abe set for resounding win as typhoon sweeps into Japan

TOKYO — The Japanese ruling camp led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was set to win a solid majority in Sunday’s lower house election, according to exit polls by local media.

Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party is projected to win 253 to 300 seats, taking majority of the 465-seat lower house of parliament by itself, while its coalition partner the Komeito Party is expected to win 27 to 36 seats, said an exit poll by the Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

The Party of Hope led by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan are vying to be the largest opposition, with the Party of Hope likely to win 38 to 59 seats and the CDPJ projected to win 44 to 67 seats, according to the NHK poll.

Multiple exit polls showed that pro-constitutional reform forces are set to secure over two thirds of the lower house seats, paving way for the prime minister to realize his long-term ambition of revising the postwar pacifist constitution.

According to the NHK poll, the four parties in favor of revising the constitution — the LDP, the Komeito Party, the Party of Hope and the Japan Innovation Party — are expected to win 326 to 392 seats, over 70 percent of the 465 lower house seats.

The vote took place as a typhoon bore down on the country, with many heeding warnings to cast their ballots early.

Tens of thousands of people were advised to evacuate, hundreds of flights were cancelled and train services disrupted on Sunday because of heavy rain and strong winds.

Typhoon Lan, classified as an intense Category 4 storm by the Tropical Storm Risk monitoring site, was south of Japan and moving northeast at 50 kilometers per hour on Sunday night, speeding up slightly, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

Lan appeared to have weakened slightly from its peak, but it was still a powerful storm that could pound parts of Japan with more than 80 mm of rain an hour, an agency official told reporters.

It is set to make landfall on Japan’s main island of Honshu, possibly near Tokyo, early on Monday, at which time it is likely to have weakened to a Category 2 storm.

“The wind and rain will grow stronger as the night goes on, so take measures as needed as early as possible, preferably before it gets dark,” the official said.

One man was knocked unconscious after scaffolding collapsed at a building site, NHK said. There were a handful of other injuries caused by falls, all minor.

More than 70,000 households in various parts of Japan were advised to evacuate, with more than 5,000 ordered to do so, NHK public television said.

Abe told reporters he had called on the government to take steps to minimise any threats to life.

It was not immediately clear how the storm and warnings to evacuate affected voting.