Reuters Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), smiles as he puts a rosette on the name of a winning candidate.Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won a strong new mandate from voters in a national election, a result he indicated would embolden him to push for the first changes to the nation’s constitution since it was introduced in 1947. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner retained a two-thirds majority in a lower-house election with almost all results decided on Sunday, television stations said. Final official results will be available on Monday. After a steep fall in public-approval ratings this year tied to allegations Abe helped friends in business dealings, the prime minister took advantage of opposition party disarray and a revival in support to call an election more than a year before a legal deadline. During the 12-day campaign, Abe framed the vote as a referendum on his handling of the economy and the threat from North Korea. Japan’s economy has grown continuously for the past year-and-a-half, the longest stretch for more than a decade, while Abe has taken a similar hard-line approach to North Korea as President Donald Trump.via