Tokyo- The Tokyo metropolitan assembly election on July 2 is expected to serve as a major test for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration at a time when recent media opinion polls have shown sharp falls in public support for his cabinet.

Depending on the outcome of the closely watched election, the leadership of Abe, also president of the country's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, could fall, affecting his strategy on a possible dissolution of the House of Representatives, the powerful lower chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament, for a snap general election, as well as the timing of constitutional revisions envisioned by the Japanese leader, analysts said.

In the past, elections for the assembly of the Japanese capital served as precursors for parliamentary elections held soon after.

In the June 1993 Tokyo assembly election, held soon after the Lower House was dissolved for a snap election following the Diet's adoption of a no-confidence motion against the cabinet of then Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, an LDP bigwig, the now-defunct Japan New Party, for which Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike was a member, increased the number of its seats substantially.

In the snap Lower House election in July 1993, the LDP failed to secure a majority of the seats in the chamber, leading to the establishment of a non-LDP grand coalition government. The LDP lost power for the first time since its establishment in 1955, although it won back the reins of government later.

In the July 2009 election for the metropolitan assembly, the Democratic Party of Japan, now the Democratic Party, showed a strong performance. The DPJ won big in the Lower House poll in the following month, and the LDP fell from power again. The LDP returned to power in the December 2012 Lower House election.

If the LDP, now the biggest force in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly, loses its seats massively in the coming assembly poll, frustration among LDP members over Abe, who has no major rival within the party now, could grow strong, political analysts said.

While many LDP members expect the next Lower House election to take place around autumn 2018, slightly before the terms of current Lower House members end in December the same year, Abe may face difficulties deciding the timing of a possible Lower House breakup, they said.

Abe's constitutional revision plans could also be affected. In a speech on Saturday, Abe expressed his readiness to submit the LDP's constitutional revision proposal to the commissions on the supreme law of both chambers of the Diet during an extraordinary Diet session, seen to be convened in autumn this year. (Jiji Press)