TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese voters cast ballots on Sunday (July 21) in an upper house election, with Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc looking to protect its majority and keep on track plans to amend the country's pacifist constitution.. Read more at straitstimes.com.
TOKYO - Japanese voters cast ballots on Sunday in an upper house election, with Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc looking to protect its majority and keep on track plans to amend the country's pacifist constitution.
Sunday's vote is for half the seats in the House of Councillors - the less powerful upper house of Parliament. Susumu Rokkaku, an 85-year-old male pensioner, said: “I voted for an opposition candidate but whoever is elected, nothing will change. I have no expectations.” "Abe's strength is largely based on passive support resulting from disarray in the opposition camp and a lack of rivals," Shinichi Nishikawa, professor of political science at Meiji University in Tokyo, told AFP.
Abe is also hoping that his coalition and a loose group of conservatives from smaller opposition parties can grab a two-thirds majority in the upper house, giving him the support to move ahead with plans to amend the constitution's provisions on the military. The provisions, imposed by the US forces after World War II, are popular in the public at large, but reviled by nationalists like Abe, who see them as outdated and punitive.
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