Japan’s Abe easily wins party polls
TOKYO: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won a comfortable re-election as leader of his ruling party yesterday, setting him on course to become Japan’s longest-serving prime minister 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 selfconfessed “military geek”, in a two-horse race for leader of the Liberal Democratic Party.
The win 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 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 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 here, said 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, Abe will head to New York this weekend to attend the United Nations General Assembly and hold a summit with United States President Donald Trump.
Abe and 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, Abe aims to use the election to push his dream of reforming the country’s post-World War 2 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”.