Tokyo - Japan's Socialist Democratic Party (SDP) decided yesterday to pull out of the country's ruling three-party coalition, a report said. The SDP holds 15 seats in parliament's lower house and the move will leave Mr Hashimoto's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its remaining ally, the minor New Party Sakigake, with 263 seats, from a total of 500.
In the upper house the ruling bloc will lose its majority, holding only 121 seats out of 252.
