Japan's ruling LDP regains upper house majority

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) regained majority in the upper house of the parliament for the first time in 27 years, after an independent lawmaker was approved on Saturday to join the ruling party.

Tatsuo Hirano, a 62-year-old lawmaker who had been reconstruction minister in 2012 under the government led by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), left the DPJ in 2013 and became an independent. He gave his support to a LDP candidate during the upper house election on July 10.

Last week, Hirano submitted an application to join the LDP after being invited by LDP Secretary General Sadakazu Tanigaki, according to local media.

Hirano's switch to the LDP brought the seats of the ruling party in the 242-member upper house to 122, which will give Prime Minister Shinzo Abe more power to push for his political agenda.

Holding a seat in the Iwate district in northeastern Japan, Hirano is a third-term lawmaker whose seat was uncontested in the latest election.

Abe's ruling LDP and other forces in favor of revising Japan's pacifist Constitution won a two-thirds majority in the July 10 upper house election. But the LDP was only one seat short of a single-party majority.

A two-thirds majority is needed in both houses before the parliament can propose any constitutional amendment in a national referendum. Endit