Abe to push constitution reform after election win
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, buoyed by a huge election win for lawmakers who favour revising Japan’s post-war, pacifist constitution, signalled a push towards his long-held goal on Monday but will need to convince a divided public to succeed.
Parties in favour of amending the US-drafted charter won nearly 80% of the seats in Sunday’s lower house election, media counts showed.
That left the small, new Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) as the biggest group opposed to Abe’s proposed changes.
Formed by liberal members of the Democratic Party, which imploded before the election and no longer exists in the lower house, the CDPJ won 55 seats, a final count by public broadcaster NHK shows. That is a fraction of the ruling bloc’s twothirds majority of 313 seats in the 465-member chamber.
Abe said he wanted to get other parties on board, including Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike’s new conservative Party of Hope, and was not insisting on a target of changing the constitution by 2020 that he floated this year.
Amending the charter’s pacifist Article 9 would be hugely symbolic for Japan. Supporters see it as the foundation of postwar democracy but many conservatives view it as a humiliating imposition after Japan’s defeat in World War 2 in 1945.
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PRIORITIES: NORTH KOREA, AGING JAPAN
Fresh off a decisive election victory, Abe pledged to tackle what he called Japan’s two national crises: the military threat from North Korea and an aging and shrinking population.
Abe said he is committed to protect the Japanese people’s prosperity and peace from any contingency. He also referred to Japanese people who were abducted years ago and are believed to still be held by North Korea.