Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and junior coalition New Komeito Party have secured a comfortable majority of upper house following Sunday's election, giving Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a firmer grip over both houses of parliament.

Exit polls results showed that Abe and his ruling LDP-bloc have secured 71 seats in the upper house election. This, combined with the 59 uncontested seats they already have, gives the coalition a total of 130 seats, more than the 122 seats needed to seize power.

But the polls also revealed that the LDP did not win enough seats for the party to secure a majority on its own, despite its best showing ever under the new electoral system. Its ally New Komeito won between 10 and 12 seats, the first double-digit win in nine years, meaning the LDP is not completely autonomous, which could prove pivotal in upcoming debates -- particularly those of a constitutional nature.

The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and independent parties took an expected trouncing in Sunday's election, securing merely 88 seats in the smaller upper chamber, a record low, and seeing power wrestled away from them and thus bringing an end to the so-called "twisted Diet," the exit polls also showed.

The LDP-led coalition returned to power in last December's general election, ousting the Democrats after three years in power. As the ruling coalition already controls more than a two-thirds majority in the lower house, Abe has successfully boosted his power in parliament.

The ruling bloc will now be able to enact legislation far more smoothly than before, as previously debates and wrangling in the divided Diet slowed down the passage of key bills from the lower to the upper house and hampered their ratification into law thereafter.

The premier from the outset of this upper house election campaign had said that he wished to bring an end to a "twisted" parliament, one that had plagued him during his first term at the helm.

"We cannot proceed with reconstruction as well as economic revival if the Diet remains divided. I want to end it," the prime minister was quoted as saying recently.

But some political analysts like Hirohisa Suzuki told Xinhua on Sunday that there is concern in some quarters that Abe's seemingly unwavering resolve for economic reform could weaken in the face of a resurgent LDP.

"Such a monumental victory for Abe and the LDP-bloc could mean more opposition from within the party's own ranks to regulatory reform, particularly from lawmakers with ties to specific industries that may not benefit from change," he said, adding that there are other downsides to Abe's famed "Abenomics" economic agenda.

Abe's main detractor, Banri Kaieda, leader of the main opposition DPJ who was pummeled in Sunday's election, has also voiced concern over Abe's economic ambitions, stating that the prime minister's three-tiered policy, which has involved pumping massive amounts of new money into the economy, and seeks to make huge investments in private sector industries, as well as a host of other fiscal stimulus measures, could wreak havoc on the lives and livelihoods of the Japanese people.

Kaieda, along with other opposition members and some leading economists, believed that "Abenomics" will ultimately lead to far higher consumer prices, at a time when wages have been largely frozen and consumption tax will likely be hiked, against the backdrop of a nation facing ever-mounting public debt.

Japan's public debt currently stands at more than twice the size of the nation's economy and is the largest in the industrialized world.

However, Japan's hawkish leader, Abe, remains confident that his "Abenomics" mix of hyper-easy monetary policy, fiscal spending and structural reforms will bring about the necessary fiscal changes to raise the nation from its economic doldrums and reverse its decades-old deflationary state.

But some opponents of Abe have also claimed that the prime minister's economic assurances are merely an elaborate rouse to gain enough clout from the voters in the short-term before getting back to his main agenda of changing Japan's pacifist Constitution to enable the nation's "self defense force" to become a regular military.

Critics are concerned that Abe will, following his landslide victory in Sunday's upper house election, shift his focus back to his nationalistic agenda and set about revising the post-war, war- renouncing pacifist constitution, and take a tougher stance on geopolitical issues currently facing Japan.

"Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party are unapologetically right-leaning and the party has been beating its nationalistic drum a long time before and since it rose to power again seven months ago," Shizuoka-based political observer and author Philip McNeil told Xinhua by phone earlier Sunday.

"Ideologically, Abe wants to build a 'strong Japan' and along with a number of his senior ministers, harbors nationalistic convictions, evidenced by his own ministers' visits to a controversial shrine honoring war criminals," McNeil said, adding that the weeks and months to come will reveal Abe's true intentions.

Such a shift to the right, together with moves to strengthen Japan's defense capabilities, would undoubtedly further unsettle already tense relations with Japan's most powerful neighbors -- China and South Korea, analysts attest.

Aside from bitter resentment still felt over Japan's brutal colonial occupation of many parts of North East Asia during World War II, and the sense that Japan has still not fully owned up to its militaristic wrongdoings, Japan is currently embroiled in territorial rows with China and South Korea that continue to escalate.

Japan announced recently it was mulling the idea of naming and nationalizing some 400 uninhabited islands in and around what it determines its waters, in a similar move that re-ignited Japan's current standoff with China over its nationalization of China's Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.

With Japan marking the 66th anniversary this year of a constitution drawn up after World War II by American officials, Abe has made no secret of the fact he wants this to be readdressed, as the constitution, according to the leader, is ambiguous and out of date.

At the heart of the matter are changes to Article 9, which limits the country's military to that of a self-defense force.

Abe has made Article 9 a key issue on his political agenda and although support for his party may be high, as evidenced by Sunday 's convincing win at the polls, support for revising the constitution is far lower, with one survey showing that less than 20 percent of Japanese people think it's necessary to change the constitution.

Nevertheless, Suzuki pointed out that the LDP is initially intent on changing article 96 of the constitution, which requires two-thirds of both houses of parliament to approve a constitutional amendment before it goes to a national referendum for voters to approve and change article 9 thereafter.

The LDP is backed by the Japan Restoration Party and Your Party, which also support amending Article 96.

The change to Article 96 would allow just a simple majority of the Diet to approve a proposed amendment, and a simple majority of voters to ratify it in a national referendum.

"The concern now lies in the fact that such a radical change, following the result's of today's upper house election, is now " effectively" in the hands of one party who controls a simple majority of the government and the electorate. It means that the party can easily and rapidly add amendments to constitutional clauses, with little opposition," Suzuki said.

But Suzuki added that the LDP's ally New Komeito, who won an historic victory in Sunday's upper house election, may now have more sway in parliamentary debate as the LDP did not win a clear majority.

The New Komeito Party is not as gung-ho as the LDP about amending the constitution and could put up some resistance. The party's stance is that they are open to debating and discussing the constitutional "core," but have not committed themselves to changing either of the constitutional articles in question, at this juncture, sources with knowledge of the matter said.