He needed 232 votes to defeat the motion, and he secured 293 – almost all of them from the 305 lower house members of his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).
Elections take place in July for the upper house, now controlled by the opposition, led by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).
Although the DPJ used these campaign pledges in 2009 to help defeat the LDP after a half-century in power, they are only mildly popular now.
Yet the DPJ won its landslide victory thanks in large part to the support of unions and rural districts.
As the election nears, alarm will grow within the DPJ over its two principal ballerinas.
These will be another milestone for the DPJ.
It is not the DPJ that is urgently pressing the rights of women in the workplace, but Mr Abe and the LDP.
This week, as Junichiro Koizumi celebrated his fourth anniversary as prime minister, the opposition was in a sorry state.The Fukuoka loss was especially bad for the DPJ.
When, ahead of upper-house elections last year, Mr Kan unexpectedly discussed a tax increase, voters punished the DPJ at the ballot box.Yet Mr Kan has ploughed on.
Mr Yosano was near the heart of the conspiracies, with his close pal in the DPJ, Yoshito Sengoku, now minister for national strategy, whom he still sees several times a week.
Mr Abe will be hoping for an alliance with Mr Hashimoto's party in the next general election, which the prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), is expected to call in the next few months.Such an alliance, in theory, would go deeper than just hawkish views on disputed territory.
