48 % back Abe-proposed Article 9 revision: Jiji poll

October 13, 2017

TOKYO- A Jiji Press public opinion poll showed on Friday that 48.2 percent of respondents support Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's proposal to recognize the country's Self-Defense Forces by revising war-renouncing Article 9 of the constitution.

In the October survey, 34.4 percent said they do not support the Abe-proposed constitutional amendment, and 17.4 percent said they cannot take a position.

Abe, also leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has called for adding a third sentence to Article 9 to stipulate a rationale for the existence of the SDF while keeping its two existing sentences intact.

The Abe proposal was backed by over 70 percent of LDP supporters and by more than 60 percent each of supporters of Komeito, the coalition partner of the LDP, and opposition Nippon Ishin no Kai.

Support for the proposal stood at about 40 percent among those endorsing the Party of Hope, led by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike.

Meanwhile, the share of opponents of the proposal was far higher than that of those in favor, among supporters of the Japanese Communist Party and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, which was set up by former Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, a defector from the opposition Democratic Party.

The survey also found that 45 percent of all respondents support the Abe administration's plan to use some of the income from the consumption tax hike from 8 percent to 10 pct slated for October 2019 to make preschool education free of charge and for other measures, not for originally envisioned fiscal reconstruction steps. Jiji Press