Japan Press Weekly

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2013 February 6 - 12 [POLITICS]

JRP invites LDP for constitutional revision

Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party - JRP) is hailing itself to the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as its would-be partner for constitutional revision, pointing out that the JRP plus the LDP alone are making up two-thirds of Lower House seats even without the Komei Party.

Nakada Hiroshi of the JRP at a House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting on February 8 opened his talks with his invitation to form a JRP-LDP coalition, emphasizing the JRP’s ambition to relax the requirements set by Article 96 of the Constitution regarding procedures for the proposition toward constitutional revision.

Seeking to ease the conditions for constitutional revision, the JRP representative called for cutbacks in the necessary number of parliamentary votes in both Upper and Lower Houses from the present two-third to one-half with a view to eventually remove the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo gave a positive response to Nakada while blaming Article 96 for not allowing even a single step toward constitutional revision without a two-third Diet endorsement. Abe said that Article 96 is a reasonable place “to start making a change.”

Nakada, by saying that he only talks about procedures for constitutional revision and about the need to hold serious discussions on the Constitution, encouraged the Komei Party to join in the anti-constitutional force.