Japan's ruling coalition unlikely to maintain upper house majority in election: NHK exit poll

Japan's ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito is unlikely to keep its majority in the House of Councilors following Sunday's election, media reports said.

Voting for the upper house election, where half the seats are up for grabs, started at 07:00 and ended at 20:00 Sunday local time. The ruling camp is at risk of losing its majority, public broadcaster NHK projected, citing its exit poll. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's LDP and its small ruling partner Komeito must win at least 50 of the 125 contested seats to clear the majority line. They are forecast to secure 32 to 51 seats, according to NHK.

For the opposition, NHK projected that the largest Constitutional Democratic Party could expand its seats, while the Democratic Party for the People and Sanseito look set to make significant gains.

A Kyodo News exit poll also showed that the ruling bloc is struggling to retain its majority in the 248-seat upper house of the Diet in the election.

Currently, the LDP and Komeito have 75 seats that are not up for re-election. Failure to secure 50 seats in this election would plunge Japan into political turmoil, as Ishiba would have to seek support from opposition parties in the upper house, Kyodo News said.

LDP Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama avoided giving concrete comments on TV, saying that "vote counts are still ongoing and I would like to refrain from commenting on the nature of responsibility at this time."

In the October 2024 general election, the ruling coalition already lost its majority in the more powerful House of Representatives, or lower house, forcing Ishiba to form Japan's first minority government in over three decades.

Japan's ruling coalition unlikely to maintain upper house majority in election: NHK exit poll

China's Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwest on Sunday, sending three astronauts to its orbiting space station.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, lifted off from the launch site at 23:08 Beijing Time (15:08 GMT).

The crew members consist of mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying, who is also the first astronaut from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

In another notable first, one of the crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

After entering orbit, the Shenzhou-23 spaceship will perform a fast automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the space station core module Tianhe, forming a combination of three modules and three spacecraft.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.

China launches Shenzhou-23 manned spaceship