Abe’s constitutional amendment efforts at stalemate

May 3, 2019

Tokyo--Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has apparently been locked in a stalemate in efforts to realize his long-cherished political aim of revising the country's constitution, which marked the 72nd anniversary of its enforcement on Friday.

With main opposition parties maintaining their stance of rejecting any constitutional revision under the Abe administration, the result of the upcoming election in summer of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of parliament, is expected to affect the course for constitutional amendments, pundits said.

"Now is the time for us to hold head-on discussions on the country's future as we stand on the starting line of the new era," Abe said in his message to a meeting held on April 23 by suprapartisan lawmakers seeking to establish a new constitution, calling for promoting talks on constitutional revisions. The new era, Reiwa, started on Wednesday with the enthronement of Emperor Naruhito.

The prime minister's ruling Liberal Democratic Party compiled last year its constitutional amendment proposals, including the stipulation of the Self-Defense Forces in war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution.

During the ongoing ordinary session of the Diet, the country's parliament, the LDP aims for the enactment of a bill to revise the national referendum law to allow polls to be set up at commercial facilities, hoping to pave the way for presenting its amendment proposals to the Diet.

But opposition parties have stepped up their offensive against the Abe administration due to a series of scandals, including statistics irregularities found at the labor ministry, sources familiar with the situation said.

Against this background, the start of substantive discussions at the Commission on the Constitution of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, has been delayed until May 9.

The commission is expected to initially discuss television commercials for national referendums as requested by the opposition side.

The main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan is working on drawing up a proposal for completely banning such commercials by political parties.

"A vote on the envisaged national referendum law revision will not be held during the current Diet session," a senior official of the CDPJ said.

Meanwhile, Komeito, the LDP's coalition partner, has become more cautious about constitutional amendments, while tolerating the LDP's plan to go ahead with the national referendum law revision.

As the current Diet session is set to end on June 26, a senior LDP official said that discussions on constitutional amendments are unlikely to begin in full swing until after the Upper House election at the earliest.

Any proposal to revise the constitution needs to be supported by a two-thirds majority in both Diet chambers before being put to a national referendum.

The ruling camp and two parties in favor of constitutional revisions--Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party) and the Party of Hope--need to win at least 88 seats in total in the Upper House election to meet the condition for making a constitutional amendment proposal.

The four parties have a total of 87 seats to be contested in the Upper House election.

While Abe's term of office as LDP president will end at the end of September 2021, he has denied his intention to seek his fourth term as LDP head. Thus, his current term is likely to be the last opportunity for him to realize his political ambition, pundits said. Jiji Press