Voters in Japan, including 18- and 19-year-olds who are newly eligible to cast a ballot, have expressed their hopes and fears over the July 10 Upper House election as campaigning kicked off this week.
Jinshiro Motoyama, a 24-year-old student at International Christian University in Tokyo, said he was concerned about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's drive to amend the war-renouncing Constitution, and believed the sensitive issue was being pushed into the background.
"Even if he wins the election by using sugar-coated words on the economy and other issues, I wonder if he'll be able to claim he has secured a public mandate (for constitutional revision)," Motoyama said.