BY TOMOHIRO OSAKI AND AYAKO MIE
Marking the 69th anniversary
of the postwar pacifist Constitution, supporters and opponents of
constitutional revision held rallies in Tokyo on Tuesday to speak out on their
respective causes.
Participants were particularly
enthusiastic this year as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic
Party gears up for the crucial Upper House election this summer, in which the
party hopes to gain momentum for its long-held goal of revising the
Constitution.
Activists on both sides see
the election as the last chance to realize or thwart Abe’s lifelong ambition to
rewrite the nation’s supreme law.
The LDP, which along with its
junior partner Komeito currently occupies a majority of the 242-seat Upper
House, is aiming to increase this to more than two-thirds — a prerequisite for
launching a national referendum on constitutional reforms. The LDP-Komeito
coalition already dominates two-thirds of the 475-seat Lower House.
“There is a rise in public
calls for amendment,” the LDP said in a statement Tuesday, claiming that the
current document was no longer suited to recent social changes and the world’s
political environment. “We need to bring the Constitution up to date, and do so
with our own hands,” the party said.
In a video message to a forum
co-organized by Utsukushii Kenpo wo Tsukuru Kokumin no Kai (Citizens’ Group to
Create a Beautiful Japanese Constitution) in central Tokyo, Abe renewed his
personal resolve to revise the war-renouncing Article 9, in particular voicing
dismay at the current Constitution’s lack of mention of the Self-Defense
Forces.
The group is widely regarded
as an affiliated body of Nippon Kaigi (Japan Conference), Japan’s largest
citizens’ group advocating nationalistic policies.
“A national debate is
necessary to decide whether the Japanese people are OK with the current
situation in which the SDF might be perceived as unconstitutional,” Abe said in
the message. “Let’s work together to revise our Constitution.”
The forum was chaired by
conservative journalist Yoshiko Sakurai, who backed revision amid Japan’s
increasing vulnerability to natural disasters and escalating threats from an
assertive China.
“The current Constitution
cannot protect Japanese nationals,” he said.
Sakurai decried the national
charter’s lack of an “emergency clause,” which would allow the government to
declare a state of emergency in the event of natural disasters and other
contingencies to facilitate rescue and reconstruction efforts.
Also present at the forum,
former education minister Hakubun Shimomura said it was not Article 9 alone
that protected Japan after the war, but rather the Japan-U.S. alliance and the
deterrence provided by the SDF.
“We cannot say that we can
continue to live peacefully just because we have Article 9,” said Shimomura.
“We need to be able to protect ourselves.”
Public polls, meanwhile, have
suggested a majority of voters are opposed to any revision of Article 9.
A Kyodo News poll conducted
Friday and Saturday showed 56.5 percent of respondents opposed the idea of
revising the war-renouncing Constitution under Abe’s stewardship, while
one-third, or 33.4 percent, supported it.
An NHK phone survey carried
out last month likewise found 31 percent of respondents believed constitutional
revision was unnecessary, while 27 percent said it was “necessary.”
To drum up voter support,
three citizens’ groups held a rally at a park in Tokyo’s Ariake district on
Tuesday to protest the push for revision, attracting an estimated 50,000
people, according to organizers.
Participants called for the
demise of the Abe administration and claimed Abe was trying to undermine the
pacifist principles of the Constitution and turn Japan into a “nation capable
of waging war.”
This year, the event invited
leaders of four opposition parties, including the Democratic Party, the
Japanese Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party and Seikatsu no To
(People’s Life Party). The politicians reaffirmed their pledge to win the Upper
House election and restore democracy and constitutionalism to the country.
Democratic Party President
Katsuya Okada said Abe had repeatedly alluded to his willingness to alter the
war-renouncing Article 9 in the Diet.
Underlying such remarks, Okada
said, were Abe’s ambitions to remove all of the current restraints imposed on
Japan’s right to exercise collective self-defense — or the right to use force
to attack a third-party state assaulting an ally country, even though Japan
itself is not under attack.
Last year, Abe partially
removed the self-imposed ban by overturning long-held government constitutional
interpretations and revising relevant laws.
Although Abe asserts a
bolstered Japan-U.S. alliance would help deter foreign attack, protesters say
it has an eerie echo of Japan’s past militarism.
“We must put a stop to this,
no matter what. We will muster what we have to fight our way through the
election,” Okada told the crowd.
Meanwhile Kazuo Shii, chairman
of the JCP, asserted that a draft constitution compiled by the LDP “disregards
basic human rights for the greater good of society.”
The LDP draft, if realized,
would “change the Constitution so that it would control citizens, not the
powers that be,” Shii said. “What should be changed is not the Constitution,
but the government that makes light of it,” he added.
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