With the re-election of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to a third — and final — three-year term as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, he could remain in office through September 2021, well on course to become Japan's longest-serving prime minister. His easy win over his sole opponent in the race, former LDP Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba, reaffirms his unrivaled grip on power in the party. The LDP-Komeito alliance retains a solid majority in the Diet in the absence of a powerful opposition force. The question now is what agenda Abe will spend his dominant political resources on in the final years of his administration.

In his LDP campaign, Abe reiterated his goal of submitting the party's draft to amend the Constitution — including changes to the war-renouncing Article 9 in order to clarify the legal status of the Self-Defense Forces — to the Diet as early as this fall. Revising the postwar Constitution has long been on Abe's political agenda, and last year he effectively set a target of accomplishing this by 2020. The two-thirds majority that the ruling coalition (plus its pro-amendment allies) holds in both chambers of the Diet — a condition needed for proposing a constitutional amendment for approval in a national referendum — presents a rare opportunity for Abe to try to achieve his goal.

Still, amending the Constitution, which has never been revised since its promulgation 71 years ago, remains a divisive issue. A recent Kyodo News poll showed that nearly half the respondents opposed Abe's plan to submit the LDP draft amendment this fall, versus 37 percent who supported it. A separate survey of the LDP's rank-and-file members and its supporters showed the opposite result — half the respondents endorsed the plan and roughly 30 percent opposed it. But even among the LDP members and supporters, the economy was the top priority they expected the new LDP chief to focus on, followed by pensions, medical and nursing care services, diplomacy and national security, and fiscal reconstruction — with a constitutional amendment trailing far behind.