The Liberal Democratic Party on Wednesday announced a plan to extend its term limit for party president to three three-year consecutive terms, opening the possibility that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could remain in charge for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in 2020.
Abe, whose current and second term expires in September 2018, could run for a third time, after the LDP formally approves the extension during the party’s convention in March next year. Current party rules limit LDP presidents to two consecutive terms totaling six years.
The LDP’s task force on party and political system reform, chaired by LDP Vice President Masahiko Komura, unveiled the three-term proposal at a meeting among 18 party members chosen from both the upper and lower houses and different factions.
The plan will then be put forward to a meeting of all LDP lawmakers and then to the party’s General Council before relevant rules can be amended at the convention on March 5.
The task force proposed last month either raising the existing limit to three consecutive terms or abolishing term limits altogether. There has been no opposition to extending the term limit per se, according to party members.
Japanese law does not limit the number of consecutive terms prime ministers can serve, but by convention they are usually the heads of the largest and ruling party.
So after the rule change and if Abe remains the LDP head and his party comes out of at least one general election as the largest ruling party, he could be in office when Tokyo hosts the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the summer of 2020.
Abe served as prime minister for around a year before he resigned in September 2007.
The party banned its presidents from serving three consecutive terms in 1980. The length of one term was fixed at three years in 2002. Junichiro Koizumi, who was prime minister from 2001 to 2006, stepped down when he reached the term limit.
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