Fresh from sweeping the polls in Sunday's Upper House election, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday called the outcome an endorsement of Abenomics and pledged to expand spending, particularly in rural areas, despite soaring public debt.
But he said nothing about whether and how he may push his long-held ambition to rewrite the postwar pacifist Constitution, now that lawmakers who support revision hold two-thirds of both houses of the Diet — enough to trigger a referendum on the question.
"The nation has given me a powerful mandate to further accelerate Abenomics. I am grateful for this," Abe told a news conference at the Liberal Democratic Party's headquarters in Tokyo.