Kyoko Nakayama, special adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the issue of North Korea's abductions of Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s, was assured of winning a House of Councilors seat Sunday, according to a Kyodo News projection.

Nakayama, 67, was on the list of Liberal Democratic Party candidates in the proportional representation segment. It is the first time she has been elected to the Diet.

During the campaign, she sought voter support for her bid to resolve the abduction issue. Pyongyang freed five abductees in 2002 and said they were the only ones left alive. Japan disputes this claim, as well as the total number of Japanese that were kidnapped.

Nakayama, who went to work in the Finance Ministry in 1966 after graduating from the University of Tokyo, acted as liaison between the government and abductees' relatives after Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, appointed her as Cabinet secretariat adviser on the abduction issue in 2002.

When she tendered her resignation in September 2004, saying she had fulfilled her duty as an adviser, it triggered dismay among the five repatriated abductees and the relatives of other missing Japanese. Abe put her in charge of the issue again when he assumed office last September.

Abe asked her to run in the election by saying she would be able to take a firmer stance against North Korea if she became a lawmaker.