LDP clarifies aim to revise Constitution in election pledges

October 3, 2017

TOKYO- Releasing its campaign pledges on Monday for the House of Representatives election on Oct. 22, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party clarified its aim of amending Japan's constitution, including its pacifist Article 9, for the first time since the supreme law was put into force in May 1947.

In the pledges, the LDP stressed that it aims to change the constitution by submitting its draft revisions to the Diet, the country's parliament, after full-fledged discussions in and outside the party and winning support from two-thirds or more of the members of both chambers of the Diet for proposing the constitutional amendments.

It is the first time for the LDP to set out a policy of seeking constitutional amendments as a centerpiece in its election promises.

In the pledges for the upcoming general election for the all-important Lower House, the LDP also called for allocating revenue from the planned consumption tax rate increase to 10 pct from 8 pct in October 2019 for the establishment of a social security system focusing on all generations.

Also underlining the importance of maintaining a tough stance against North Korea, which is escalating its provocations, the LDP apparently highlighted its ability to continue to lead the government in a challenging security environment.

As major pillars, the LDP pledges called for strengthening pressure on North Korea, pulling Japan out of deflation through the acceleration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe' Abenomics economic policy mix, increasing wages through a productivity revolution, changing the country's current social welfare system focusing heavily on elderly people to a new system including the promotion of free education, speeding up local revitalization including the reconstruction of disaster-hit areas, and revising the constitution in four areas including the addition to Article 9 of a sentence to stipulate the rationale for the existence of the Self-Defense Forces.

The election pledges were approved at an extraordinary meeting of the party's decision-making General Council on Monday.

In the preamble of the campaign pledges, the LDP said that politics' abilities to make important decisions for protecting the future and put policies into action are now being called into question in the face of two grave challenges--the threat from North Korea and Japan's sluggish birthrate and aging population.

By stressing its achievements in the fields of national security and the economy, the LDP aims to differentiate itself from other parties, including Kibo no To (party of hope), a new party for national politics that was created only last week by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike.

The items cited for the envisaged constitutional revisions other than the new Article 9 sentence for the SDF are free education, responses to emergencies and the cancellation of the mergers of two pairs of sparsely populated two neighboring western Japan prefectural constituencies for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet. All these items are based on proposals by Abe, also leader of the LDP. Jiji Press