Ruling bloc wins election in landslide

PM cast the vote as a referendum on his economic policies and spending reforms

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition won a landslide victory on Sunday in an election for parliament's upper house, despite doubts about his economic policies and his goal of revising the pacifist constitution.

Abe's coalition and like-minded parties also got the two-thirds "super majority" needed to try to revise the postwar constitution for the first time, some TV exit polls showed, although others said just that it was within their grasp.