Shinzo Abe set to be longest- serving PM after winning party vote
Japan PM wins two- horse race by 553- 254
The battle is over. Let’s build a new Japan by joining hands and uniting. Together with you all, I want to work on reforming the Constitution. — Shinzo Abe, Japan Prime Minister While Japanese voters put the economy and social security as their top priorities, Abe aims to use the election to push his dream of reforming the country’s post-World War II pacifist Constitution
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won comfortable reelection as leader of his ruling party on Thursday, setting him on course to become Japan’s longestserving Premier and realise his dream of reforming the Constitution.
The 63- year- old conservative secured 553 votes against 254 won by former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba, a hawkish self- confessed “military geek”, in a two- horse race for leader of the Liberal Democratic Party.
The win effectively hands Abe three more years as PM, giving him the chance of breaking the record for the nation’s longest serving Premiership held by Taro Katsura, a revered politician who served three times between 1901 and 1913. To loud cheers of “banzai” — the Japanese equivalent of “three cheers” — from party members, a grinning Mr Abe said: “The battle is over. Let’s build a new Japan by joining hands and uniting.”
Shinichi Nishikawa, professor of politics at Meiji University in Tokyo, said that the vote was effectively a referendum on Abe’s record that he successfully negotiated. “But he can’t wholeheartedly welcome the result as he couldn’t win overwhelmingly.”
Public support for Abe — a political thoroughbred whose grandfather and father both held power — has recovered after he managed to survive a series of cronyism and cover- up scandals.
Reconfirmed in power, Mr Abe will head to New York this weekend to attend the UN General Assembly and hold a summit with US President Donald Trump.
Mr Abe and Mr Trump, who enjoy each other’s company on the golf course and are close diplomatic allies, are expected to analyse the latest inter-Korean summit. But they will also have to confront a growing trade dispute as Trump sees Tokyo among “unfair” trade partners.
While Japanese voters put the economy and social security as their top priorities, Mr Abe aims to use the election to push his dream of reforming the country’s post- World War II pacifist Constitution. Nationalist Abe has frequently voiced his wish to rewrite the charter, imposed by the victorious US occupiers, which forces the country to “forever renounce war” and dictates that armed forces will “never be maintained”.
Mr Abe insists any changes would merely remove the country’s wellequipped Self- Defense Forces from the Constitutional paradox whereby they should not technically exist.
“It’s time to stipulate both the Self- Defense Forces and the protection of Japan’s peace and independence in the Constitution,” he said in a speech in Tokyo.