By endorsing another term for 70-year-old Natsuo Yamaguchi, who has led the party since 2009, Komeito chose to emphasize party stability, continuity and experience rather than freshness and bold new ideas.
It’s mostly been a successful strategy over the years, but the start of Yamaguchi's eighth term comes at a time when relations between Komeito and its senior coalition partner, the Liberal Democratic Party, are not as strong as they used to be.
While there continues to be a formal working relationship between the LDP and Komeito, the kind of close, informal connections senior members of previous LDP-led governments had with top Komeito officials appears to be lacking under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.