Abe promises to rewrite Japan constitution
Print Edition
PRIME Minister Shinzo Abe vowed he would try to persuade a sceptical public of the need to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution, the day after scoring a thumping election victory.
Abe, who was re-elected by a landslide in Sunday’s polls, pledged to pursue his nationalist agenda while promising to follow through on much-needed economic reforms.
“Revising the constitution has always been an objective since the Liberal Democratic Party was launched,” Abe said yesterday. “I will work hard to deepen people’s understanding and receive wider support from the public.”
Abe’s desire to water down Japan’s constitution, imposed by the US after the end of World War II, has proved divisive at home and strained already tense relations with China.
His attempt earlier this year was abandoned, with the bar of a two-thirds parliamentary majority and victory in a referendum thought too high. The conservative leader has also said he wants reforms to education that would instill patriotism in schoolchildren and urges a more sympathetic retelling of Japan’s wartime misdeeds.
His ruling LDP and its junior partner Komeito swept the ballot on Sunday with a two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament. The coalition won a combined 326 of the 475 seats, crushing the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan.
Abe is expected to reappoint a broadly similar cabinet after he is formally named prime minister on December 24. He insisted the election had been a necessary plebiscite on his big-spending, easy-money policies, known as Abenonmics, although critics said the record low turnout of around 52 percent tarnished his mandate.
“We must go ahead with Abenomics swiftly, this is exactly what has been shown in the vote. We have to respond to that,” Abe said, pledging to “compile an economic stimulus package immediately, within this year.”
A sales tax rise in April snuffed out consumer spending, sending Japan into the two negative quarters of growth that make a recession.
“The election result is an endorsement of the past, not the future,” said Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research institute. “From now on, he has to show results in line with his promises,” Kumano said. “If he fails to improve the economy, his political capital will be reduced easily. A crucial phase is still ahead.”
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