Toru Hanai| Bloomberg | Getty Images Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida does not appear to have the “political capital” to overhaul the country’s historic post-war constitution, despite securing a decisive victory in the latest upper house election, according to an analyst. Kishida’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party won 63 seats, while its coalition partner Komeito received 13 seats, to win a majority in the contested seat for Sunday’s polls, according to a Reuters report. The election was held in the shadow of the assassination of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated on Friday while on the campaign trail — in an event that shocked the nation where gun violence is very rare. The sweeping victory meant that Kishida has enough control over both houses to propose constitutional amendments. But the prime minister is unlikely to make any real moves on that front anytime soon, said Tobias Harris, senior fellow for Asia at the Center for American Progress.
“Given inflation, given that you know basically Kishida’s numbers — his approval rating goes down during the campaign — I mean, it didn’t matter for the election. But he’s not going to feel like he has that kind of political capital,” Harris said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Tuesday. “Also, let’s not forget that he’s going to use the rest of the year to do a big update on national security policy. We’ve had a big discussion about the defense budget heading into the next fiscal year,” he added. “We’ll have to see where things look, maybe a year from now.” According to Article 9 of Japan’s postwar constitution, the country pledged to “forever renounce war” after defeat in World War II. Therefore, its defense force is not allowed to wage war except to defend the country.

Public opinion

Recent opinion polls seem to suggest that the Japanese people are steadily moving away from pacifism in the wake of Russia’s war against Ukraine. “There is still the question: ‘How will the opposition parties participate?’ The LDP has always made it clear that it is reluctant to do this unless it can at least get every party to sign on to the process, because the risks of being seen to be speeding up constitutional revision could mean losing the referendum,” he said. Harris. “But if you can’t win the referendum, you won’t get the review. They will want to make sure everything is right.” On constitutional amendments, Kishida told state media NHK hours after polls closed for the Upper House election on Sunday that he would consider developing draft revisions that could be put to a national referendum. He also said that he will also seek to gain public understanding about the constitutional amendments. “There’s certainly a supermajority there from a parliamentary point of view to move forward with some constitutional change,” Simon Baptist, global chief economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC on Tuesday. Public support is “probably not there yet,” he said, adding, “We would need to see some public dialogue and some kind of national process there.” “However, there is much that can be done by expanding the definition of self-defense, which has been done,” Baptist added. “I mean Abe has done a lot of that and I think the administration will continue to do that using the war in Ukraine as a reason to prolong what Japan is going to do.”