TOKYO - While Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition may seem to be
cruising easily toward the first revision of the
country's postwar pacifist constitution, it has
encountered an unexpected head wind - a decline in
public support for the move.
In a historic
step toward revising the supreme law, Japan's Diet
(Parliament) will almost certainly enact a bill
soon setting the rules for a national referendum
required for any constitutional
changes. It will do this on
the strength of the Liberal Democratic Party
(LDP)-led coalition's majority in both houses of
the Diet.
But recent opinion polls show
that public support for constitutional amendments,
especially rewriting a clause that has put strict
restrictions on Japanese military activities since
the end of World War II, has plummeted.
According to a survey of 3,000 Japanese
nationwide conducted by the conservative Yomiuri
Shimbun, Japan's largest national daily, 46% of
those polled favor constitutional revisions, while
39% oppose them, with the rest undecided or having
no opinion.
Although those who favor
constitutional revisions have consistently
outnumbered those who oppose them for 15 years,
the percentage of the former has dropped for three
years running. The 46% support ratio represents a
drop of nine percentage points from a similar poll
taken a year ago before Abe took office.
Meanwhile, the 39% disapproval ratio was seven
percentage points higher from a year ago.
Another recent opinion poll, conducted by
Kyodo news agency, also showed a decline in public
support for constitutional revisions. The survey
showed that the percentage of those who favor
revising the constitution dropped to 57% from 61%
in a similar survey two years ago. Meanwhile, the
percentage of those who oppose revising the
constitution increased to 34.5% from 29.8% during
the same period. As for war-renouncing Article 9
as a whole, 44.5% of the pollees replied that they
saw no need to revise the article while only 25%
replied that it should be revised.
It is
believed that some of those who used to favor
revising the constitution have become cautious
about the issue after realizing that what they
thought was just an armchair exercise may become a
reality. This swing of the public opinion pendulum
makes it even more uncertain whether - and when -
the constitution will actually be revised.
Since taking office last September, Abe
has advocated a more assertive foreign policy and
a stronger security alliance with the United
States. He has also called for a "departure from
the postwar regime" and has made it his top policy
goal to seek revisions of the constitution to
allow the nation to play a greater role in the
international security arena, especially in step
with the US. Abe has specifically expressed a
strong desire to see the constitution revised
within five years.
To be sure, the
soon-to-be-enacted national referendum law marks a
significant and necessary step toward revising the
constitution. Sixty years after the constitution
took effect in 1947, Japan still does not have a
law concerning a national referendum on
constitutional amendments because of opposition to
revising the constitution. But public opinion has
become more favorable for constitutional
amendments in recent years.
Any
constitutional revisions, however, are still at
least three to four years away because the
proposed referendum law actually comes into force
three years after its enactment. In addition,
there are two high hurdles to be cleared before
the constitution can be changed - two-thirds
approval of both houses of the Diet then passage
of a national referendum with the support from
more than half of eligible voters.
Proposed referendum law The
House of Representatives passed an enabling bill
on April 13 on holding a national referendum
required to revise the constitution. The bill,
drafted by Abe's LDP-led coalition, will very
likely clear the House of Councilors, as well and
become law during the current Diet session. The
ruling coalition wants the legislation passed
before the 60th anniversary on May 3 of the
constitution's coming into force, if possible.
The LDP and New Komeito coalition and the
opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)
introduced their own national referendum bills in
May, 2006, and attempted in vain to reconcile
them. DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa instructed his party
negotiators not to budge even an inch.
Consequently, his ruling coalition gave up on
negotiations and railroaded its referendum bill
through the Lower House on April 13. The DPJ
submitted its own referendum bill, but it was
rejected.
Ozawa, himself a long-time
staunch advocate of constitutional reform and a
former LDP bigwig, has hardened his stance on the
referendum bill issue since ultra-conservative Abe
declared in his New Year's press conference in
early January that he will make revising the
constitution a key issue in the upper house
election in July.
Although many members of
his own party favor enacting a national referendum
bill - and even revising the constitution - Ozawa
feared that cooperating for the passage of the
bill would only benefit the coalition ahead of the
crucial election.
In addition, the DPJ
leader did not want to undermine a united front
among the opposition parties against the ruling
coalition in the run-up to the poll. The other,
smaller opposition forces, including the Socialist
and Communist parties, are vehemently opposed to
any constitutional revisions. They urged the DPJ
to oppose any referendum bill.
The
coalition's referendum bill introduced a
controversial element into Japan's elections by
apparently lowering the voting age for referendum
from 20 to18. If the bill passes the Diet, those
who have reached the age of 18, instead of 20 at
present, will officially be deemed adults - a
change that could significantly alter Japanese
society.
An attached provision of the
ruling coalition's bill, which is now being
deliberated in the Upper House, stipulates the
need to review many laws, including the Public
Offices Election Law and the Civil Code before the
national referendum law comes into effect in three
years' time. The election law sets the voting age
at 20 and the Civil Code defines the age of
adulthood as 20 and older.
There are said
to be well over 20 other related laws that may
need to be reviewed, including the Juvenile Law
and the Road Traffic Law. But coalition officials
say that at least the laws banning smoking tobacco
and drinking alcohol among those aged 19 and
younger will not need to be revised.
Furthermore, the DPJ, which strongly
called for lowering the voting age to 18 in
negotiations with the ruling coalition, would
unlikely go along with any bill that didn't lower
the voting age. Yukio Edano, a top DPJ negotiator
on the constitution-related issues, said that the
party will not accept a national referendum with
the age limit unchanged at 20.
If the
referendum bill is enacted in the current Diet
session, as widely expected, the focus of
attention will shift to debates by panels to be
set up to screen constitutional amendment bills.
The standing panels are to be established in both
houses of the Diet under the referendum law. The
new panels will likely be established during an
extraordinary Diet session scheduled to convene
following the Upper House poll in July.
Of
course passing constitutional amendments will be
difficult. The coalition of the LDP and New
Komeito, a centrist party backed by the lay
Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai, is far short of
a two-thirds majority in the Upper House. This
situation will not change regardless of the
outcome of that chamber's election this summer.
Therefore, the ruling coalition will very likely
need help from members of the opposition parties
to obtain the required two-thirds of all votes in
both houses of the Diet.
Declining
public support In the autumn of 2005,
Abe's LDP adopted its draft of a new constitution
that would clear the way for Japan to play a
greater role in international security. The
current war-renouncing, pacifist constitution,
drafted by the US occupation forces immediately
after Japan's defeat in World War II, has never
been altered.
The LDP draft calls for,
among other things, rewriting Article 9 - the
clause almost synonymous with Japan's post-war
defense policy - to acknowledge clearly the
existence of a "military for self-defense". The
draft also calls for more active participation in
international peace cooperation activities. All
these elements are missing from the current
constitution.
Article 9, Section 1 says,
"Aspiring sincerely to an international peace
based on justice and order, the Japanese people
forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the
nation and the threat or use of force as means of
settling international disputes." Article 9,
Section 2 says, "In order to accomplish the aim of
the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air
forces, as well as other war potential, will never
be maintained. The right of belligerency of the
state will not be recognized."
The current
constitution is widely interpreted as forbidding
the possession of a military. Although, in
reality, Japan has about 240,000 troops of the
Self-Defense Forces (SDF) and one of the world's
biggest defense expenditures, successive
governments have explained away the contradiction
by claiming that SDF is not a military.
Many Japanese feel more insecure in the
increasingly volatile security environment
surrounding their country. There is growing alarm
in Japan over what are perceived as real or
potential threats posed by neighbors North Korea
and China. At the same time Japan is under
increasing pressure from its most important ally,
the US, to shoulder more of the burden of its
foreign and security policy, regionally and
globally.
Having a "self-imposed" new
constitution to replace the current one, drafted
by the US occupation forces soon after Japan's
defeat in World War II, is not merely a matter of
national pride, but something Japanese leaders
firmly believe the nation must do to cope with
those new challenges.
Momentum for
revising the constitution, which took effect in
1947, has mounted following the September 2005
general election, in which the LDP-led coalition
under then prime minister Junichiro Koizumi won a
landslide victory, garnering more than a
two-thirds majority in the 480-seat House of
Representatives, the more powerful of the two Diet
chambers. The political momentum has gained
further steam with the inauguration of Abe, who
has become the first premier to vow to put
revising the constitution on his political agenda.
Of those who favor revising the
constitution, the largest percentage - 48% - tend
to believe that new problems have arisen, such as
the nation's inability to make proper
international contributions, under the current
constitution. Of those who oppose revising the
constitution, the largest percentage - 47% -
replied that the nation's top law is a pacifist
constitution that Japan can be proud of.
Hisane Masaki is a Tokyo-based
journalist, commentator and scholar on
international politics and economy. Masaki's
e-mail address is yiu45535@nifty.com
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