As widely expected, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won another three-year term as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party as the sole prospective contender Seiko Noda failed to secure endorsement from party colleagues needed for her candidacy in the race that opened on Tuesday. But what will the silence of the rest of the LDP mean for the party and Abe's new term as chief?
Abe's uncontested reelection may symbolize his iron grip of the LDP after he returned to the party's helm in 2012 and brought it back to power in the subsequent Lower House election. At the same time, it comes just as his Cabinet's once high-flying popular approval ratings in media surveys have fallen rapidly in recent months — though they're still relatively high for a prime minister nearly three years in office.
The lack of any open challenge to his leadership from within the LDP seems out of line with the popular opposition to many of his administration's policies, including the government-proposed security legislation, which lifts the nation's self-imposed ban on acts of collective self-defense and significantly expands the scope of Self-Defense Forces' overseas missions.