Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and its coalition partner would fail to win the 56 seats, the number needed to control the chamber, in Sunday's upper house election, news reports said, according to dpa. After polling stations closed at 8 pm (1100 GMT), some Japanese media's exit polls showed the DPJ and its partner the People's New Party would take fewer than 50 seats while the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) would gain around 50 seats and Your Party, the most popular small party, would win about 10 seats. Kan, Japan's fifth prime minister in three years, told his close aides he would not resign regardless of the outcome, news reports said. Failure to win the majority would make it more difficult for the government to carry out its policy agenda, though the DPJ has a majority in the more powerful lower house. A total of 438 candidates are competing in the first national election since the change of government in September. Half of the 242 seats in the upper house are up for grabs. The DPJ won a landslide victory in last year's elections to the lower house, ending more than a half-century of almost uninterrupted rule by the LDP. -- SPA
