<p>The government was not immediately threatened, because it holds a majority in the more powerful lower chamber, but the result makes it more difficult to pass laws and will force it to seek new coalition partners.<br /><br />The election result -- the first ballot box test since Kan's party swept to power under a previous leader in a landslide poll last summer -- complicates his ambitious reform plans for the world's number two economy.<br /><br />When Kan took office a month ago as Japan's fifth prime minister in four years, he pledged to restore the nation's vigour after two decades of economic malaise and to whittle down a huge public debt mountain.<br />The one-time leftist activist also promised to strengthen the social safety net for the rapidly ageing society and raised the prospect of tax hikes to pay for it all -- a gamble that backfired badly on election day.<br /><br />If Kan, the 63-year-old former finance minister and self-declared "son of a salaryman", or man of the people, was looking for a strong mandate from Japan's more than 100 million eligible voters, he was left disappointed.<br />His Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) will hold no more than 113 out of the 242 seats in the House of Councillors -- far short of the 122 seats needed for a majority -- according to an exit poll by public broadcaster NHK.<br />Other television stations forecast even worse results for the coalition government, which now includes one other small party, meaning it will have trouble pushing laws through the bicameral parliament.<br /><br />Instead, Kan's government will have to engage in coalition talks to seek the support of smaller parties, with pundits pointing at the Buddhist-backed New Komeito Party and the year-old Your Party as the most likely contenders.<br />It's a disappointing state of affairs for the party that less than a year ago took power in what was widely hailed as an electoral earthquake that ended more than half a century of almost unbroken conservative rule.<br /><br />When the DPJ took power last September under former premier Yukio Hatoyama, it promised to end the murky backroom politics of the business-friendly Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the powerful state bureaucracy.<br />Hatoyama pledged to return power to the people, make the capitalist powerhouse a kinder, gentler society, and forge less subservient ties with the United States, Japan's main security ally since the end of World War II.</p>
<p>The government was not immediately threatened, because it holds a majority in the more powerful lower chamber, but the result makes it more difficult to pass laws and will force it to seek new coalition partners.<br /><br />The election result -- the first ballot box test since Kan's party swept to power under a previous leader in a landslide poll last summer -- complicates his ambitious reform plans for the world's number two economy.<br /><br />When Kan took office a month ago as Japan's fifth prime minister in four years, he pledged to restore the nation's vigour after two decades of economic malaise and to whittle down a huge public debt mountain.<br />The one-time leftist activist also promised to strengthen the social safety net for the rapidly ageing society and raised the prospect of tax hikes to pay for it all -- a gamble that backfired badly on election day.<br /><br />If Kan, the 63-year-old former finance minister and self-declared "son of a salaryman", or man of the people, was looking for a strong mandate from Japan's more than 100 million eligible voters, he was left disappointed.<br />His Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) will hold no more than 113 out of the 242 seats in the House of Councillors -- far short of the 122 seats needed for a majority -- according to an exit poll by public broadcaster NHK.<br />Other television stations forecast even worse results for the coalition government, which now includes one other small party, meaning it will have trouble pushing laws through the bicameral parliament.<br /><br />Instead, Kan's government will have to engage in coalition talks to seek the support of smaller parties, with pundits pointing at the Buddhist-backed New Komeito Party and the year-old Your Party as the most likely contenders.<br />It's a disappointing state of affairs for the party that less than a year ago took power in what was widely hailed as an electoral earthquake that ended more than half a century of almost unbroken conservative rule.<br /><br />When the DPJ took power last September under former premier Yukio Hatoyama, it promised to end the murky backroom politics of the business-friendly Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the powerful state bureaucracy.<br />Hatoyama pledged to return power to the people, make the capitalist powerhouse a kinder, gentler society, and forge less subservient ties with the United States, Japan's main security ally since the end of World War II.</p>