Abe retains supermajority
TOKYO >> Prime Minister Shinzo Abe secured a crucial victory in Japan’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, with his ruling bloc maintaining a supermajority that could allow it to push for a revision of the nation’s pacifist constitution.
With results still trickling in, public broadcaster NHK reported that Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and its smaller coalition partner, Komeito, are set to pass the 310-seat threshold in the 465-seat House of Representatives.
The result further illustrates the political savvy of 63-year-old Abe, who has proved to be an enduring force in Japanese politics despite scandals and fluctuating approval ratings.
“This is a win for Abe,” Sheila Smith, a Japan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, adding that the supermajority showed “a real endorsement of Abe’s leadership”
The decisive victory will bolster Abe’s hopes in an upcoming leadership contest within his party, potentially cementing the prime minister’s place in history. If Abe serves out a complete four-year term, he will remain at the helm during the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and become Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.
However, any attempt to amend Japan’s postwar constitution may end up being Abe’s most controversial legacy. With Sunday’s vote, Abe and his allies have retained the twothirds majorities in both houses of parliament that are required to call for constitutional amendments.
Abe has long sought to revise Article 9, which renounces war, and remove the ambiguity surrounding Japan’s military, known as the Self-Defense Forces.
While many conservatives view the amendment as overdue, many voters remain skeptical. South Korea and China, which neighbor Japan, also are nervous about what they see as the potential return of a militaristic Japan.
In an interview with NHK after polls closed, Abe said he would push for an amendment. “The ruling parties have been granted a majority,” Abe said. “I think it was the people’s voice telling us to make progress in politics and bring results with a stable political base.”
For a leader touting stability, the election had been a gamble. Abe had called the vote more than a year early, justifying it by saying that he needed a new mandate to deal with the threat posed by North Korea and to work through the details of a consumption tax increase.
Many analysts said Abe’s motive was more opportunistic, however, with the prime minister taking advantage of the disarray of the Democratic Party, Japan’s main opposition party, and a small bump in his approval ratings after a number of scandals earlier this year.
For a while, it didn’t look as if the bet would pay off. After the vote was announced, Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, a staunchly conservative former LDP member, formed her own party, which soon attracted many members from the Democrats. Some, including Koike herself, compared her mercurial rise to that of France’s Emmanuel Macron earlier this year.
Unlike Macron, Koike’s challenge did not live up to the hype. The governor opted against running in the election — and then left for a scheduled business trip to France on election day. Koike’s Party of Hope is now battling for a distant second place with another new party — the antiamendment Constitutional Democratic Party — which also rose from the ashes of the Democratic Party.
Speaking to reporters in Paris, Koike said she was disappointed. “It’s a very harsh result. My remarks and behavior made people feel unpleasant and that led to the harsh result,” Koike said, according to Kyodo news agency. “I reflect on this and feel I might have been arrogant.”