Japan heads to polls

VOTERS have begun casting ballots in Japan for a general election likely to return long-ruling conservatives to power after three years in the wilderness. Polling stations opened at 7am local time on Sunday across the nation in a lower house election, officials said, with major parties vying for premiership.

The government of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda was predicted to get a drubbing from an electorate that observers said would be handing the reins reluctantly to the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Hawkish one-time prime minister Shinzo Abe appeared set for a return to office, after a campaign in which he has sketched out a harder line on foreign policy, as tensions rise with China over disputed islands in the East China Sea.

Abe, whose brief stint as premier in 2006-7 ended ignominiously, has pledged to right Japan’s listless economy, which has suffered years of deflation, made worse by a soaring currency that has squeezed exporters. Broadcasters’ exit polls are expected to give a reasonable indication of the final outcome shortly after the ballot boxes are sealed at 8pm.