Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party won 296 seats in the 480-seat lower house in Sunday's election, well above the 241 needed for a majority and the 249 seats it held before the election, according to official results released on Tuesday.
Bolstered by seats from ally, New Komei Party, the LDP-led ruling coalition garnered 327 seats, giving it the two-thirds majority needed to override votes in the upper house, said Kiyoko Seki, an official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi called the snap elections last month after the upper house rejected his plan to privatise Japan's cash-swelled postal service.
Sunday's elections dealt a major blow to the main opposition, Democratic Party of Japan, which won 113 seats, down from 175. Party leader Katsuya Okada announced his resignation as party head to take responsibility for the defeat.
The party plans to elect a new president on Saturday. Koizumi, who touted the elections as a referendum on his push to privatise the postal system, plans to call a special session of Parliament as early as September 21 to again tackle the issue.
Koizumi is expected to reshuffle his Cabinet after the special session ends. Also in Sunday's balloting, the Communist Party of Japan retained the nine seats it had before the elections while the Social Democratic Party won seven seats compared to its previous six, Seki said.
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