Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed today to press on with his controversial move to amend Japan’s pacifist constitution, undeterred by a political scandal that has dented his popularity.<\/p>\n
Abe’s political capital is dwindling due to a widening scandal over the cut-price sale of government land to one of his supporters, with the opposition suggesting his wife Akie may have played a role.<\/p>\n
The scandal worsened when finance ministry bureaucrats admitted altering official records of the sales, erasing references to Abe and his wife as well as other political figures.<\/p>\n
“I will thoroughly investigate and show the whole picture of what happened,” Abe told the annual meeting of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.<\/p>\n
“And I will fulfil my duty by rebuilding the (government) organisation so that this will not happen again,” he said, reiterating his resolve to stay in power.<\/p>\n
Abe has denied any involvement by him or his wife in the case but protesters have staged rallies across the nation.<\/p>\n
His approval rating has fallen to its lowest level since his return to power at the end of 2012.<\/p>\n
National attention is turning to parliamentary testimony scheduled for Tuesday by Nobuhisa Sagawa, formerly the head of the finance ministry department that oversaw the land deal.<\/p>\n
Despite his fading popularity, Abe told the party gathering he was committed to changing the constitution, imposed by the United States on the defeated nation after World War II.<\/p>\n
Abe said he wants to end the debate over the constitutionality of Japan’s military, officially known as the Self-Defence Forces (SDF). The constitution says Japan renounces war and will not maintain land, sea or air forces.<\/p>\n
Scholars have long argued about whether the existence of the SDF is constitutional.<\/p>\n
The military is well regarded by the general public, and there is widespread acceptance of the government’s traditional view that they should be used only for self-defence.<\/p>\n
Abe, however, in 2015 expanded the role of the Japanese forces to include the defence of friendly nations, prompting protests from scholars and voters alike that the change violated the constitution.<\/p>\n
“Now is the time to reform the constitution,” said Abe. “Let us end this unconstitutionality debate.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed today to press on with his controversial move to amend Japan’s pacifist constitution, undeterred by a political scandal that has dented his popularity. Abe’s political capital is dwindling due to a widening scandal over the cut-price sale of government land to one of his supporters, with the opposition suggesting his wife Akie may have played a role. The scandal worsened when finance ministry bureaucrats admitted altering official records of the sales, erasing references to Abe and his wife as well as other political figures. “I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8399"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8401,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8399\/revisions\/8401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}