Upper house victory may embolden Abe to revise Constitution

Tatsuo Hirano, an independent member of Japan's upper house of parliament, or Diet, applied last week to join the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. His change of mind will give the LDP majority in the upper house for the first time in 27 years.

Together with its ruling partner New Komeito and the opposition parties that favor amending Japan's Constitution, the LDP secured more than two-thirds of the seats in the July 10 upper house election. This supermajority is important for the LDP and its leader and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has been making efforts to rewrite the Constitution and make Japan a "normal" country.

Article 96 of the Constitution stipulates that for any amendment two-thirds majority is required in both houses of the Diet, along with the approval of a majority of the voting population in a referendum. The LDP-New Komeito coalition already has supermajority in the Diet's more powerful lower house, and despite not making the Constitution an issue in the upper house election, Abe said on July 11 that he takes the latest victory as a public endorsement for revising the Constitution and vowed to set up a parliamentary committee to discuss which articles to amend and how.