FOCUS: Despite victory, PM Kishida faces challenges as next vote looms

Despite Japan's governing coalition retaining a comfortable majority in the powerful lower house in Sunday's election, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's leadership will be tested ahead of an upper house election next year with his party's No. 2 leader suffering an embarrassing defeat in a constituency race.For Kishida, who only became prime minister on Oct. 4 and entered the race with a lackluster initial Cabinet approval rate of about 55 percent, his Liberal Democratic Party winning 261 seats in the 465-seat lower chamber was a clear mandate, particularly as he had set the line of victory as …READ FULL ARTICLE