At a Feb. 8-9 party convention of the Democratic Party of Japan held in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, party head Banri Kaieda said his party will fiercely confront the Abe administration, which he called a "raging horse," and will push politics aimed at protecting people's lives and jobs.
Kaieda also criticized the Abe administration for its forceful enactment of the state secrets law, its attempt to change the government's long-standing constitutional interpretation of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution as prohibiting Japan from exercising the right to collective self-defense, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Yasukuni Shrine in December.
He said the administration is undermining a system of government based on constitutional principles, including the principle that sovereign power rests with the people, and stressed the need to rectify narrow-minded nationalism in order to achieve "open national interests and a wide range of human security."