(11 Jul 2010) SHOTLIST
1. Wide shot of election officials carrying ballot boxes inside building for counting ++NIGHT SHOT++
2. Officials carrying boxes into room
3. High angle shot of officials standing by boxes placed on long tables
4. Various shots of officials opening and emptying boxes of ballots
5. Various shots of ballots being stacked
6. Wide of official placing stacks of ballots into machine
7. Close up of stack of ballots being placed in machine, official presses button to commence counting
8. Various of machine sorting and counting ballots
9. Official collecting ballots into stack
STORYLINE:
Japan's ruling Democrats lost seats in a parliamentary election on Sunday, according to media exit polls, dealing a setback to the progressive party's ten-month-old government.
Official results are not expected until Monday and voting began later than scheduled on Sunday.
The projected losses look to be worse than expected and could make it difficult for Prime Minister Naoto Kan's party to pass bills and forge ahead with plans to slash wasteful government spending, reign in the power of bureaucrats and put more cash in the hands of consumers.
Public broadcaster NHK predicted the Democrats won fewer than 50 contested seats in the upper house election, down from 54 before the vote.
Other TV stations say the party likely won 47 to 48 seats.
If the projections are correct, the Democrats will lose a 122-seat majority shared with their tiny coalition partner in the 242-seat upper house.
The election, in which half the seats in the upper chamber were up for grabs, won't directly affect the Democrats' grip on power because they control the more powerful lower house of parliament.
To avoid parliamentary gridlock, the Democrats, which last year defeated the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that had led Japan for most of the post-World War II era, will probably seek new partners to form a coalition.
Kan, in office only a month after his predecessor abruptly quit, may have hurt his party's chances by his proposal to raise the sales tax in coming years to reign in Japan's bulging public debt, particularly as the country's population shrinks.
More broadly, the Democrats' setback may reflect a general disillusionment among voters who handed the party a landslide victory last year amid high hopes for change and greater transparency and accountability in politics.
The LDP, now the main opposition party, appears to have done better than expected, winning 48 to 50 seats, according to media outlets' predictions.
That would give them 81 to 83 seats in the chamber, up from 71 before the election.
While the Democrats scored points for freezing many public works projects viewed as wasteful, the public was sorely disappointed by former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's involvement in a funding scandal and his failure to keep a campaign promise to move a contentious US Marine base off the southern island of Okinawa.
Kan may have contributed to voter doubts about the Democrats' leadership when he appeared to backpedal on his tax hike talk after his initially buoyant approval ratings started to slide.
In the waning days of the campaign, he promised that any tax increase wouldn't happen until after the next lower house election, which must be held within three years, and that he wanted a public mandate for any tax decision that was made.
Find out more about AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]
You can license this story through AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
