Japan's prime minister calls for change of pacifist constitution

Speaking soon after his landslide victory which saw the Liberal Democratic party (LDP), its junior coalition partner Kōmeitō, and several like-minded smaller parties and independent MPs take control of two-thirds of the 242 seats in the upper house, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said his party had always been committed to rewriting the postwar constitution.

He is quoted by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper saying that he hoped deliberations by expert panels and a deeper public debate would lead to a consensus on which parts of the constitution needed changing.

The most controversial move, according to the Guardian, would be a revision of article 9 to allow Japan’s self-defence forces to act more like a conventional army. The clause forbids Japan from using force to settle international disputes and restricts its land, air and naval forces to a strictly defensive role.

Rewriting the constitution, imposed by the US occupation authorities after the second world war, has reportedly been the ideological driving force behind Abe and other conservatives who believe it unfairly restricts Japan’s ability to respond to new threats such as international terrorism, an increasingly assertive China and a nuclear-armed North Korea.

However, reports claim that Abe risks losing the political capital he has built over the past three and a half years if he appears to neglect the economy in favour of constitutional reform.