(Bloomberg) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition is set to retain its upper house majority in Sunday’s election, a media projection showed, keeping him on course to become the country’s longest-serving premier.

Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and its partner Komeito were projected to win more than half of the 124 seats up for grabs, public broadcaster NHK said after voting closed at 8 p.m. Japan time. Given the 70 seats they hold in the uncontested section of the chamber, this amounts to a simple majority of the total 245 seats.

To contact the reporters on this story: Sophie Jackman in Tokyo at sjackman5@bloomberg.net;Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo at ireynolds1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kyung Bok Cho at kcho7@bloomberg.net, Jon Herskovitz

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