TOKYO, April 8 (Xinhua) -- Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) achieved an overall strong showing in the first leg of quadrennial nationwide local elections held Sunday, although crucial losses would need evaluating, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday.
Abe was referring specially to the closely watched Osaka gubernatorial and mayoral elections, which saw former Osaka City mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura and governor Ichiro Matsui effectively switching posts having beaten candidates backed by the LDP-led coalition.
"We will look seriously at the results and make sure we achieve victory in the second leg later this month," Abe said, in response to the ruling blocs' setback at the polls in Osaka.
Yoshimura and Matsui, members of Osaka Ishin no Kai, have been campaigning to reorganize Osaka City into a metropolis with wards similar to Tokyo.
Overall, however, the LDP won 1,158 or 50.9 percent of seats in 41 prefectures up for grabs in the nationwide elections, winning a majority in 25 assemblies, with its junior Komeito ally, retaining all 166 prefectural assembly seats that it campaigned for.
While support for the LDP is numerically steady ahead of the upper house election in July, recent LDP-linked scandals may have impacted results in some key constituencies, while the main opposition party fared better than expected.
The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan secured 31 more seats prior to the polls with 118, in a better-than-expected showing, while the Democratic Party for the People relinquished 59 seats, securing 83.
The Japanese Communist Party lost seven seats, meanwhile, with 99, while the Japan Innovation Party won 13 more seats than it had prior to the polls, ending with 67.
A favoritism scandal connected to Abe and Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, which led to the resignation of a deputy land minister recently, may have taken its toll in Aso's home constituency of Fukuoka, which saw the LDP's voter base split at the polls on Sunday.
Political watchers said such scandal-linked fractures in the ruling party's base could see support chipped away ahead of the upper house election this summer.
