As Diet debate on constitutional revision draws near, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party decided Tuesday to put a freeze on its 2012 draft constitution, which critics have slammed as overly conservative and reminiscent of Japan's wartime military government.
The move amounts to a major compromise on the part of the LDP, underlining its effort to allay mounting resistance from opposition parties to the controversial document. The LDP aims to make the discussions on revising the pacifist Constitution, a longtime dream of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as smooth as possible.
"We have decided not to submit the 2012 draft constitution" to the Commission on the Constitution, a special Diet panel charged with discussing a rewrite of the decades-old supreme law, said LDP lawmaker Okiharu Yasuoka.