1 hour, 37 minutes agoTOKYO (AFP) - Japanese voters Sunday took part in a by-election widely seen as a referendum on the struggling government of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.
The by-election in a constituency in the western prefecture of Yamaguchi is the first vote for a parliament seat since Fukuda took over from the beleaguered Shinzo Abe in September.
The candidate backed by the ruling party, 59-year-old former bureaucrat Shigetaro Yamamoto, was trailing in opinion polls but recently catching up with 54-year-old former lawmaker Hideo Hiraoka, fielded by the main opposition.
Fukuda needs victory for the ruling-party candidate all the more because support ratings for his cabinet have fallen to the lowest levels since he took power.
Voter turnout was 38 percent with six hours of polling left, the local election board said. Results are likely to be available by early Monday.
The ruling party lost badly against the main opposition Democratic Party in national elections in July last year, handing control of one house of parliament to the opposition camp.
The opposition Democratic Party has pledged to create a true two-party system in Japan, where the Liberal Democrats have been in power for all but 10 months in more than 50 years.
Support for the Fukuda government took a beating from corruption and other scandals, controversy over a petrol tax and the April start of a medical scheme which results in higher expenses for some of those aged 75 or older.
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