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TOKYO, July 3-- Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike's new party and its allies scored a sweeping victory against Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Sunday's Tokyo metropolitan assembly election. "We must recognize this as an historic defeat," former defense minister and LDP lawmaker Shigeru Ishiba was quoted by public broadcaster NHK as saying. Forces supporting Koike captured a total of 79 seats out of the 127 seats up for grabs, with Koike's Tomin First no Kai (Tokyoites First party) winning 49 seats, and its major ally in the metropolitan assembly the Komeito party securing 23 seats. Meanwhile, Abe's ruling LDP won only 23 seats, its lowest-ever level in a Tokyo assembly election, according to local media. The LDP has been suffering recently from a plunging public support rate for Abe's cabinet amid two school scandals implicating the prime minister as well as the ruling coalition's unorthodox way of forcing through a controversial legislation at the parliament. Abe has been accused of using his position to make sure that a school operator, chaired by a close friend of Abe's, was selected to open a new veterinary department at a university in a special deregulated zone. He has also been implicated in a scandal involving the school operator Moritomo Gakuen, which reportedly bought a 8,770-square-meter piece of land last June in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, for 134 million yen, equivalent to only 14 percent of its appraisal price, for building a new elementary school with Abe's wife Akie as its honorary principal. | 
