Prime Minister Shinzo Abe repeatedly emphasizes that economy is the foremost issue in the campaign for the July 10 Upper House election — urging voters to choose whether to endorse his bid to go on with Abenomics or return to what he calls "those dark days" before the policy package was launched. But the race should be a venue for voters to hand down a comprehensive judgment on what his administration has done over the last 3½ years, including the security legislation enacted last year amid sharply divided public opinion and charges that it runs counter to the war-renouncing Constitution. Voters should also be aware that the outcome of the election could set the stage for amending the Constitution.

A change of government is not at stake in an Upper House race, in which half the chamber's 242 seats come up for grabs every three years. Abe's Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito alliance retains a two-thirds majority in the Lower House, which holds the upper hand in electing the prime minister. A dismal performance for a ruling party in an Upper House election can trigger calls for a sitting prime minister to step down to take responsibility — as happened to Abe after the LDP-led alliance lost its Upper House majority in 2007. Given that the ruling coalition has a large number of seats not up for re-election, however, the hurdle is quite high for the opposition parties to deprive Abe's bloc of an overall majority in the upper chamber.

Attention thus focuses on whether the ruling bloc can expand its majority grip — or whether the opposition parties, finally forging a unified campaign in crucial electoral districts, can reverse their track record of being dwarfed by the ruling bloc in all national elections since 2012.