The prospect that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may stay in power through 2021 — now that his Liberal Democratic Party's rules have been changed to extend the limits on its president's terms at the party convention Sunday — underscores Abe's unrivaled grip on power over the ruling party, with nobody appearing to come forth to challenge his leadership for the foreseeable future. The lack of any significant rivalry to Abe, however, seems also to reflect the dearth of viable next-generation leaders — a problem that could haunt the party in coming years.

After returning to power in 2012, Abe's Cabinet retains unusually robust popular support for an administration in its fifth year — scoring an approval rating of 61.7 percent in the latest Kyodo News poll — and the 44.6 percent support rate for his LDP dwarfs the 7.3 percent for the largest opposition Democratic Party. He has led the party to four consecutive landslide victories in Lower and Upper House elections. In 2015, he was chosen uncontested for a second three-year term as LDP president. After the party officially changed its rule Sunday to allow its chief to run for a third consecutive term, Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai quickly expressed his support for Abe's re-election when his current term ends in September 2018.

The dominant reign of Abe's ruling coalition has highlighted the weakness of the splintered opposition camp in the Diet. Also within the LDP, Abe's leadership has faced little challenge from his party colleagues since he brought the LDP back to power in 2012 and kept leading the party to big election wins. That the party's No. 2 leader is already talking about a third term for Abe highlights the lack of rivals. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, seen as one of the potential successors to Abe, says he will focus on doing his job as a member of the Cabinet, while former LDP Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba, who lost to Abe in a runoff in the 2012 party race, is mum on whether he will run in the 2018 LDP election.