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Rule change could make Abe longest-serving PM

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20160601-shinzo-abe-tax-hike
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TOKYO: Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Sunday approved extending the term limits of the party’s president, a change which could see Prime Minister Shinzo Abe become the longest-serving premier in the postwar era.


The LDP decided to extend the term to three consecutive terms for a total of nine years from the current two straight terms for sixyears. The revision could allow Abe to remain in office until 2021.


Currently, his tenure as LDP president will expire in September 2018.


Abe has said he wants to amend the constitution itself, but major surveys showed a majority of the public opposed the move.


“The LDP will lead concrete discussion on the proposition of the amendment of the constitution. That is the LDP’s historic mission,”the 62-year-old hawkish leader said at the party congress.


In 2015, Japan’s parliament passed controversial security legislation to allow the military to expand its role overseas, though about 90 per cent of the country’s constitutional scholars said the move violates the country’s pacifist constitution.


Article 9 of the charter prohibits the use of force to settle international disputes.


Abe took office in December 2012, vowing to reinvigorate the world’s third-largest economy. But his government has failed to achieve long-term economic growth ever since.


The proposed change would allow him a third term as LDP president if Abe wins the next intra party election. As party leader he could again be elected prime minister. Abe previously served as premier for a year, during which he was dogged by a string of scandals involving his cabinet ministers,before resigning in September 2007.


Abe and his wife Akie currently face criticism over an alleged land deal involving a primary school run by a far-right operator in Osaka.


The Japanese premier has been dogged by the scandal for weeks, which involves the bargain-price sale of public land to the controversial new school, where Akie Abe briefly held a role as honourary principal.


The current longest-serving prime minister in the postwar era is Eisaku Sato who served from November 1964 to July 1972. — dpa


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