By Linda Sieg TOKYO (Reuters) - A candidate backed by Japan's ruling coalition lost a race for a governorship on Sunday in an apparent backlash against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's decision to end a security policy that has kept the military from fighting abroad since 1945. The election in the western prefecture of Shiga was the first high-profile poll since Abe's cabinet adopted a resolution ending the ban on exercising "collective self-defense", or aiding a friendly country under attack - the most dramatic change in Japanese security policy in decades. Abe has argued the change is needed to cope with a tough security environment, but the move has stirred angst among many voters wary of entanglement in foreign wars and worried that Japan's post-war pacifist constitution is being gutted. Takashi Koyari, who ran with the backing of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, was defeated by former opposition Democratic party lawmaker Taizo Mikazuki, according to the prefecture's final vote count.
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