After a sweeping election victory last month, Shinzo Abe was formally re-elected prime minister on Wednesday, with his focus now shifting to an imminent visit by the U.S. president and his own longtime dream of revising the pacifist Constitution.
After being voted in as the nation's 98th prime minister, Abe reappointed the same Cabinet team he had billed as a "professional bunch who gets the job done" in August.
In a special Diet session convened Wednesday, Abe was elected with 312 votes, while Yukio Edano, leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, finished second at 60, followed by Shu Watanabe from Kibo no To (Party of Hope) at 51, according to Kyodo News. Although Kibo no To's leader is Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, she cannot be elected because she's not a Diet member.