Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has indicated he will put amending the Constitution on the campaign agenda for the Upper House election this summer. The triennial election, in which half the chamber's seats are up for grabs, is seen as a watershed test for Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and its allies to secure a two-thirds majority in both chambers of the Diet — a condition necessary to initiate a constitutional amendment that would then be the subject of a national referendum in a bid for majority approval.
Still, pro-amendment parties including the LDP and their members remain vague as to what specifically they seek to change in the Constitution, whose text has not once been altered since it was introduced 69 years ago. If, as Abe said in the year's first news conference, they want to "deepen national discussions" about amending the Constitution, they should come forward on which part of the nation's supreme law they want to change — and for what purposes. Otherwise, voters could end up vesting the powers to propose an amendment with political forces that vaguely repeat the need to amend the Constitution without going into specifics. Voters need to keep a close watch on what the parties and lawmakers have to say about this issue in the lead-up to the election.
What Abe said Monday as the 150-day regular Diet session kicked off is not particularly new. "We will call for amending the Constitution during the election campaign as we've done before, and through such calls I'd like to deepen public debate" on the issue. Leaders of his ruling coalition parties appeared to play down Abe's words. LDP Secretary-General Sadakazu Tanigaki indicated he was negative about making it a campaign issue, saying that amending the Constitution would require building a consensus with a top opposition party. Komeito chief Natsuo Yamaguchi reportedly said the ruling coalition has not yet come to the stage where it should ask voters' judgment on specific amendments.