The ruling Liberal Democratic Party's panel on constitutional revisions failed to reach a consensus Thursday over how the war-renouncing Article 9 should be revised, facing resistance from rank-and-file members calling for more radical revision than the ideas proposed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Those lawmakers included former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who has pledged to challenge Abe in the upcoming LDP presidential election in September.
The party leadership avoided rushing to vote on Abe's proposal on Thursday, apparently trying to avoid internal disputes as the government reels from a document-tampering scandal involving Osaka-based school Moritomo Gakuen.