With Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet enjoying astronomically high approval ratings compared with recent leaders, the prospects of his Liberal Democratic Party winning a critical Upper House election this summer look bright.
But two high-court rulings, on March 6 and 7, have put a large question mark over the legitimacy of Abe's power base.
The Tokyo High Court and the Sapporo High Court ruled December's Lower House election — in which Abe's LDP won a convincing victory — was unconstitutional given the unacceptably wide vote-value disparities between some urban areas and rural locales with ever-decreasing populations.