Japan MPs re-elect Abe after election landslide

November 01, 2017 14:04

Japan's parliament today formally re-elected Shinzo Abe as prime minister after his party's crushing election victory, setting the 63-year-old on track to become the country's longest-serving premier.

MPs voted by a huge majority to re-install Abe, after his conservative Liberal Democratic Party swept to a two-thirds "super majority" on October 22.

During the campaign Abe had stressed the need for strong leadership to deal with what he called Japan's "twin crises", a belligerent and nuclear-armed North Korea and a shrinking birth rate.

He has also vowed to start a debate on the controversial issue of making changes to Japan's US-imposed post-war constitution to bolster the role of the military in the formally pacifist country.

In the 465-seat lower house, Abe won 312 votes from the conservative ruling bloc.

In the 242-seat upper house, Abe won a majority vote of 151 votes, returning him to the top Japanese political post.

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