Shinzo Abe surpasses Katsura Tarō as the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Japan’s constitutional government. But he reaches the milestone with a setback. His Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) coalition lost its supermajority in the Upper House election of Jul 21, a loss of ground that weakens Abe’s position and sets back his long-held quest to revise the
country’s pacifist constitution.
PM Deuba congratulates Abe for being reelected Japan's PM
Abe, a member of a prominent political family, won a seat in the lower house of the Diet (parliament) in 1993, and was named secretary general of the LDP in 2003. In 2006 he became the country’s first prime minister to have been born after World War II and its youngest since the war when he succeeded Koizumi Junichiro, who had reached a term limit. He lost his job after an LDP electoral defeat in the upper house in 2007 Upper House, then regained it in Dec 2012 following the landslide victory of the LDP in Lower House elections.
