Japan's Ruling Party Set to Lose Majority, Exit Polls Suggest

The governing coalition of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is likely to lose a majority in the smaller of Japan's two parliamentary houses in a key election Sunday, according to exit polls, worsening the country's political instability.

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Voters were deciding half of the 248 seats in the upper house, the less powerful of the two chambers in Japan's Diet.

Ishiba has set the bar low, wanting a simple majority of 125 seats, which means his Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, and its Buddhist-backed junior coalition partner Komeito need to win 50 to add to the 75 seats they already have.

That would mean a big retreat from the 141 seats they had before the election.