The upper-house election was officially announced today in Japan. The polling date was on October 22.
There is a possibility that Prime Minister Abe will be forced to resign even if his Liberal Democratic Party and Komei-to Party, forming the coalition ruling patties, win a majority (233 seats) of the lower-house seats if LDP loses scores of seats from its past 287 seats.
From the beginning, PM Abe decided to dissolve the upper house and hold this election to avoid criticism on him due to the Moritomo/Kake scandals where PM Abe is believed to have exercised his political influence in favor of the Moritomo primary school and a university belonging to the Kakei school group.
However, PM Abe raised reformation of the Constitution as one of the agendas for the election. PM Abe claims that the Japanese pacifist Constitution should be changed so that the Self-Defense Forces should be explicitly authorized in the Constitution. He wants to give Japan's Defense Forces a status that is enjoyed by military of normal countries. The Japanese Constitution literally inhibits the Japanese Government from holding military forces, so that it calls the organizations with military powers the Self-Defense Forces but not the army, the navy, and the air forces.
However, the current Japanese Constitution enacted in 1947, when Japan was under occupation of the allied forced led by General MacArthur, has never been revised in these 70 years. Nationalists and right-wing politicians like PM Shinzo Abe has long wanted to revise the Constitution and give constitutional authorization to the Self-Defense Forces. As a matter of fact, the US currently stations about 40,000 soldiers in Japan and runs several big air bases and naval ports with one home port for one of its nuclear aircraft carriers in Japan. The Japanese people believe that they are protected from Russia, China, North Korea, etc. with this US forces and its nuclear weapons in addition to the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. So the Japanese people don't want to upgrade the status of its Self-Defense Forces, since it might trigger militarism that once dragged Japan into WWII.
Mr. Abe is very pro-America, but he also wants to upgrade the constitutional status of the Self-Defense Forces and he is supported by nationalists and right-wing people.
Liberal or progressive movement is Japan is not strong. Maybe 30% of Diet members are pacifists, liberal or progressive. Most of them are not so pro-American. But most of Japanese voters are pro-American. So, left-wing parties, represented by the Japanese Communist Party, has only a slim chance of holding power in Japan through election. But most of Japanese are also pacifists and don't join right-wing movement. They don't want to even revise the current Constitution.
So, it is doubtful that PM Abe will win this election with overwhelming support from voters. But it is also unlikely that he will lose the election. The ruling parties of Abe's LDP and Komei-to will secure a majority, but it seems to be likely that LDP will lose scores of seats. The point at issue is how many seats LDP will lose rather than the political agenda related to the national security. If LDP loses almost 100 seats, Mr. Shinzo Abe might be forced to step down from the presidency of LDP and the premiership.
