Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party have begun to put amendment of the Constitution at the forefront of their agenda, with specific timetables already discussed for revising the text that has remained unchanged since it took effect in 1947.
They are reportedly seeking to get the Diet to initiate an amendment sometime after the Upper House election in the summer of 2016, so that the revision would be tabled for ratification in a national referendum as early as 2017. What's not yet forthcoming, however, is what they want to achieve by amending the Constitution.
The LDP alone is short of a two-thirds majority in either the Lower or the Upper House — the number required in both Diet chambers to initiate a constitutional amendment, which then needs to be endorsed by a majority of votes in a public referendum. The party therefore is emphasizing cooperation with other parties in its quest to revise the Constitution.