Japanese are voting in a nationwide election for the upper house that may cement Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s grip on power, as he forges ahead with policies to encourage exports and easy lending to keep a shaky economic growth going.
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Gains in parliamentary elections Sunday mean that Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, with the help of coalition partner Komeito and fringe groups supporting constitutional change, now can cobble together the crucial two-thirds majority in the 242-member upper house needed to propose revision and put it to a referendum.
Combined with other conservative politicians, the coalition has a two-thirds majority in the upper house, which is needed to propose any referendum to change the constitution, written by the United States after Japan’s defeat in the Second World War.
With backing from fringe parties that also favour consitutional change, Abe could now have the two-thirds majority that he needs in both houses to push through an amendment to the country’s basic law.
What he might tackle instead is a proposal from pro-revision lawmakers to create an article that gives the prime minister state-of-emergency-like powers in the event of a major contingency such as a big natural disaster.
“Through thorough debate in the Diet commission and a deepened understanding among the people, we can hope for a convergence (of opinion) on which articles will be amended”, Abe said about the constitution.
The results raise questions over whether Abe will switch his focus to altering the postwar US-imposed constitution, a potentially time-consuming process that could expend his political capital and distract the government from its economic program. “Investment in the future is the keyword”, Abe said.
“At this point, it’s meaningless to say yes or no [over potential revisions to the constitution]”, Abe added.
Asked about the possibility at a post-election news conference Monday, Abe didn’t comment one way or the other.
According to Kyodo News service, 40% of 18- and 19-year-old voters voted for the Liberal Democratic Party, while the Democratic Party – the main opposition party – received only 19.2%.
The Kyunghyang Shinmun’s article was headlined “Abe gained 162 seats needed to push for constitutional reform”.
“A vote for the LDP is a vote to destroy Article 9”, Communist Party leader Kazuo Shii said in a speech last week. “Our party alone does not hold two-thirds of the upper house”. The recent elections and the supportive super majority now appears likely to make these initiatives move forward more smoothly if they indeed take place. The PM wants to revise the nation’s post-war pacifist constitution to enable military action under the doctrine of collective self-defense amid China’s growing military clout.
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The Japanese public is largely supportive of the constitution as it stands and will probably show resistence to attempts to tinker with it, said Sadafumi Kawato, professor of politics at the University of Tokyo. The only contention in the balloting is how much support Abe can win.
