ASSESSMENTS

Can Japan's Prime Minister Win a Third Term?

Jun 14, 2018 | 09:00 GMT

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sits in the Japanese parliament, the Diet, on March 24, 2017.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sits in the Japanese parliament, the Diet, during March 2017. Since 1989, the average length of a prime minister's tenure has been under two years, and Abe's six-years-and-counting in power have broken the trend.

(KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images)

Highlights

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is up for a third term as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) president this September.
If Abe is voted out, Japanese politics could enter a period of frequent leadership changes and instability, jeopardizing the LDP's economic reform and military normalization agendas.
It would also cause diplomatic challenges at a time when rivalry among global great powers is heating up and neighboring Asia-Pacific leaders are gaining power.
The LDP, which determines the outcome of the election through an internal party leadership vote, will need to calculate whether it's more of a liability for Abe to remain in power or for his departure to open up space for political weakness and uncertainty.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is in for a major test in the next couple of months. At the end of September, he'll be up for a third term as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and thus another term as prime minister. Led by Abe, the LDP pulled off a solid victory in October 2017 snap elections, scoring a supermajority and leaving the opposition marginalized and in disarray. But with members of his party in full control of whether he stays on, the outcome will be either the end of Abe's political career or the final step toward his becoming the country's longest-serving prime minister....

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