TOKYO — The makeup of Japan’s future government was in flux on Monday after voters punished Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s scandal-tainted ruling coalition in a weekend election, leaving no party with a clear mandate to lead the world’s fourth-largest economy. The biggest winner of the night, the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), had 148 seats, up from 98 previously, but also still well short of the 233 majority. But days before the vote, a newspaper affiliated with the Japan Communist Party reported that the party had provided campaign funds to branches headed by non-endorsed candidates. “LDP’s payments to branches show utter lack of care for public image,” ran an editorial in the influential Asahi newspaper two days before the election. In one bright spot, a record 73 women were elected into Japan’s male-dominated parliament, surpassing 54 at the 2009 election.

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Persons: Shigeru Ishiba’s, “, Ishiba, Komeito, Keiichi Ishii, ”, Tobias Harris, Yoshihiko Noda, Fumio Kishida, Yuichiro Tamaki, Nobuyuki Baba, Rintaro Nishimura, Masakazu Tokura Organizations: U.S, Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party, Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Japan Foresight, LDP, Japan Communist Party, Asahi, Democratic Party for, People, Japan Innovation Party, DPP, Bank of Japan, Asia, Komeito Locations: TOKYO, China, North Korea, Japan