Shinzo Abe set to reshape Japan with conservative agenda

Nearly seven years ago, Shinzo Abe shuffled out of the official residence of the prime minister of Japan a beaten man. Ground down by a failure to push through his pet projects and an inability to fill the large political shoes of his immediate predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, Abe had lasted exactly 365 days and departed citing a debilitating stomach complaint as the main reason for his resignation.

Today, a hale and hearty Shinzo Abe is on the cusp of a victory in the election for the Upper House of the Japanese Parliament that one analyst believes could see him rule for a decade and have a comparable impact on the Japanese political scene as Margaret Thatcher did in Britain in the 1980s.

"At this point, it looks very much as if the Liberal Democratic Party and Mr Abe will win big … which will give him a great deal of power," said Steven Reed, a professor at Chuo University who specialises in Japanese politics. He was speaking ahead of today's elections.

"In many ways, it is like Mrs. Thatcher when she won in 1983, and I think that if the LDP allows Mr Abe to lead the party as he has been doing so far then he could go on to change Japan as much as Mrs Thatcher did in Britain."

Abe is benefitting from an opposition that is in disarray, in much the same way that Thatcher's political opponents were fractured in 1983, although there are still questions over the cohesiveness of the Japanese leader's party.

"If he can hold the party together, then Mr Abe could head the LDP for the next 10 years," Reed said. "And that would be something that no other modern Japanese leader has done."