Japanese voters handed a landslide victory to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the weekend’s upper house elections.  Single party rule after six years of divided government gives Abe a free hand to pursue his agenda.

Abe is an outspoken nationalist who has promised to revitalize Japan’s stagnant economy and strengthen its military.  He gets new political capital to spend at a time when China is increasingly flexing its military and economic muscles.

Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) routed the competition.  The opposition Democratic Party (DPJ) suffered a humiliating setback, securing only 17 of the contested seats. 

The insurgent and ultra-conservative Japan Restoration Party was darned near annihilated, winning only four of the 44 seats it vied for.  And one of those winners turns out to be Antonio Inoki, the former professional wrestler who once battled Muhammad Ali in an exhibition bout.  The Restoration Party’s leader, Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, is widely seen as damaging his own brand and that of his party earlier this year, when he made incredibly insensitive remarks about foreign “comfort women” forced to service Imperial Japanese Troops during World War II.

One thing that might hold Abe back is the low turnout.  Only 32.6 percent of voters went to the polls on Sunday, and that’s down from nearly 40 percent during the last upper house election.  It suggests the Prime Minister got less than a full mandate. 

And he still needs his coalition’s junior partner, the Buddhist New Komeito party, which opposes his desire to amend the pacifist post-war constitution, and replace the Self Defense Force with a conventional military.

If voters gave Abe a mandate for anything, it’s his “Abenomics” economic policy of spending and cheap money.  It’s credited with propelling the Nikkei 225 up 5 percent for the year and growing the overall economy by 4 percent.