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Abe-led Japanese ruling coalition jeopardizing postwar pacifist Constitution

(Xinhua) Updated: 2016-05-03 15:57

Compared to previous polls by the Japanese major newspaper, those who support Article 9 increased from 54 percent in 2013 to the current 68 percent, while those who support amending the article decreased from 39 percent to 27 percent in the same period.

Constitutional professor Shigeru Minamino at the Kyushu University explained that the change came from the public's sense of danger since they are becoming more and more clear about Abe's attitude toward the Constitution.

"Seventy years have past since the Constitution was written and the law should be changed along with the changing situation," said vice President of the LDP Masahiko Komura in a TV debate on Tuesday on the issue with other political parties' leaders.

Komura said that the LDP will appeal in the upper house election campaign to amend the Constitution, adding if the Japanese public is more interested in the economy, the Constitution review issue will therefore not be a major focal point in the upper house running.

However, economic policies are often used to lure public votes during elections by the LDP and its real intention behind the economy is always the actual political agenda, such as the security laws and the Constitutional amendment.

During the debate on Tuesday, Kazuo Shii, leader of the Japanese Communist Party, said that what should be changed is not the Constitution itself, but the politics that ignores the Constitution. "Abe's government is jeopardizing constitutionalism here and that's why they don't have the right to review it," said Shii.

The Asahi Shimbun said in Tuesday's editorial that the current situation on Japanese constitutionalism is not working properly because of what the government of prime minister Abe is doing, saying that the administration is compromising the universal principles written in the Constitution.

"Abe may think his administration represents the majority of the Japanese public and therefore it can do everything it wants to do, but it is unconstitutional," the editorial said.

It is also ironic that the legitimacy of Abe's government is also under question since the Supreme Court of Japan ruled the outcome of the 2014 lower house general election was in a "state of unconstitutionality."

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