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The political stakes are rising in Japan
By Hisane Masaki
TOKYO - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe opened the current session of the
Diet (parliament) by making it clear that he will give top priority to revising
the US-written constitution. As a step toward that goal, Abe said he wanted the
Diet to pass for the necessary legislation enabling popular referendum on any
constitutional changes.
Earlier this month, the prime minister had already declared that he would make
constitutional amendments the key issue in the upcoming election for the House
of Councilors, the Diet's upper house. The current Diet session ends in June,
after which the members will adjourn to campaign in the upper house election in
July.
The stakes are high. This will be the first electoral test for Abe since taking
office as national premier and president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
It is also a test for the main opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa, who took over
the leadership of the Democratic Party of Japan (DJP) last April, seven months
after the party's electoral debacle in 2005 at the hands of former
premier Junichiro Koizumi.
Abe, who started off with public-approval ratings in the 70% range, has been
steadily losing popularity because of some scandals in his cabinet. The
conservative wing has also begun to question his nationalist credentials
because of conciliatory gestures toward China he made soon after taking office.
So a bad showing could seriously undermine his ability to govern or, in the
worst case, could lead to his resignation.
Many analysts say Abe has decided to make constitutional revision a key issue
in the upcoming Upper House election for fear of further alienating disgruntled
conservatives. Writing a new charter and eliminating the war-renouncing article
is a major cause for the LDP right wing. No previous premier has ever made a
pledge to make constitutional revisions a key election issue.
Unlike the Lower House, which the prime minister can dissolve at will in the
parliamentary fashion, the Upper House sticks to a fixed electoral cycle.
One-half of the 242 members are up for election every three years. The premier
can dissolve the Lower House and hold a double election concurrently, but that
seems unlikely this year, given the LDP's huge majority.
The Upper House election will be preceded by unified local elections across the
country in April, which are widely seen as a harbinger of results of the
national elections. The parties will also make alliances for these elections
that presage the jockeying in the big show in July.
At the LDP's annual convention this month, Abe emphasized the need to beat
opposition parties in the upcoming local and national elections, which he said
"will decide the fate of politics. We'll fight these battles fairly and proudly
announce to people the course we're hoping to pursue. By doing that, we'll
definitely win," he said.
Meanwhile, the DPJ pledged at its own annual convention this month that it will
deprive the LDP-led coalition of a majority in the Upper House as a prelude to
ousting it from power in an early election for the House of Representatives,
the more powerful lower house of Japan's bicameral parliament.
Abe took office last September, succeeding Koizumi. He has named his
administration the "nation-building cabinet" and vowed to pursue a more
assertive foreign policy and called for revising the post-World War II pacifist
constitution drafted by the US occupation forces. The constitutional revisions
would allow the country to take a higher profile militarily on the global
stage.
But actually getting revisions passed is a tricky proposition. Any revision
requires a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of the Diet. The LDP-Komeito
coalition has such a majority in the Lower House, but the Komeito is cool to
the idea. The DJP is open to the idea of revisions, but would not likely want
to fall in line with LDP plans without getting some advantages.
Indeed, opposition leader Ozawa, a former LDP bigwig, has long been an advocate
of constitutional reform.
The LDP-led coalition wants to enact the referendum enabling bill after
revising it through consultations with the DPJ. But although many opposition
party members favor enacting such a bill - and even revising the constitution -
the DPJ leaders fear that cooperating for the passage of the bill would only
benefit the coalition ahead of the crucial election in July.
In addition, the DPJ does not want to undermine a united front among the
opposition parties against the ruling coalition. The other, smaller opposition
forces, including the Socialist and Communist parties, are vehemently opposed
to any constitutional revisions and have urged the DPJ to oppose a referendum
bill.
Meanwhile, the opposition camp, led by the DPJ, has its own ideas about what
issues should be stressed in the run-up to the July polls. It is poised to
attack the LDP-led coalition over the widening gap in income among Japanese as
well as over the problems of corruption in politics amid public outcry over a
spate of money-related scandals involving LDP politicians. They argue that the
widening gap is a direct result of Koizumi's reforms.
At present, the LDP-New Komeito coalition has a majority of 136 seats in the
242-seat Upper House, with 112 held by the LDP and
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