Japan ruling party candidate elected Tokyo governor, aiding PM Abe

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By Linda Sieg TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's favored candidate won Sunday's election for governor of Tokyo, quashing efforts to make the vote a referendum on Abe's pro-nuclear energy policy nearly three years after the Fukushima disaster The widely-expected victory by former health minister Yoichi Masuzoe comes as a relief for Abe, who had suffered a rare setback in another local election last month. The 65-year-old Masuzoe, backed by Abe's Liberal Democratic Party, was the winner by a wide margin, taking more than the combined total of his two closest rivals in the race to run Tokyo, a city of 13.3 million people. Masuzoe's most prominent rival was former prime minister Morihiro Hosokawa, 76, who came out of retirement to run, and with support from charismatic ex-premier Junichiro Koizumi had opposed Abe's atomic energy policy.




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