Japan Vote Strengthens Shinzo Abe’s Goal to Change Constitution
By MOTOKO RICH

TOKYO — Voters helped Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan move closer on Sunday to securing the lawmaker support he needs to revise a pacifist Constitution that has been in place since American occupiers created it in 1947.

An official count on Monday morning showed the governing coalition and its allies had captured two-thirds of the seats in the upper house of Parliament, the amount required to proceed with the constitutional revision.

Despite a weak economy and divided public opinion on the expanded role for Japan’s military that Mr. Abe is seeking, his Liberal Democrats and their allies again won a commanding majority in the upper house.

“This is the people’s voice letting us firmly move forward,” Mr. Abe said. When asked whether he would proceed with a revision of the Constitution, he said it had long been the Liberal Democrats’ goal.

Whether Mr. Abe will be able to pursue that ambition — to overturn the constitutional clause that calls for the complete renunciation of war — remains to be seen.

While the partners in the governing coalition have indicated some support for amendments, different groups have divided opinions on which clauses they want to change. Still, the election outcome is sure to give Mr. Abe more leverage.

The results in Japan were achieved without the fiery populist emotions that have fueled the United States presidential race or the recent British vote to leave the European Union. Instead, the Japanese election seemed to reflect resignation with the status quo rather than a broad mandate.

Voters see few alternatives, with many still feeling stung by what they saw as the opposition Democratic Party’s failure to deliver during its four-year term before Mr. Abe came to power in 2012.

“I think people are unhappy, but they don’t really see that voting is going to make things different,” said Jeff Kingston, the director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo. For Mr. Abe, he said, “the ace up his sleeve is the opposition.”

Professor Kingston added: “There is not an alternative. This is as lukewarm a sense of support as you get.”

As in previous elections, voter turnout was low. The Ministry of Internal Affairs put it at just under 55 percent, only slightly higher than results three years ago in the last upper house election.

During the campaign this summer, Mr. Abe and other Liberal Democrats kept mostly quiet about their revisionist ambitions, which led opposition party leaders and some news media critics to accuse them of a hidden agenda.

Mr. Abe focused mainly on economic policy — known as Abenomics — and other less contentious issues, like his promise to expand child care and nursing home slots. Although polls have shown that few Japanese believe the economy is thriving, Mr. Abe spoke with pride of growth in employment, without mentioning that the rise had been mostly in part-time or contract jobs.

“Abenomics is not failing,” Mr. Abe told a crowd of more than 1,000 at his final campaign stop on Saturday evening in Tokyo. “The only choice is to go forward.”

Loyalty to the Liberal Democratic Party runs deep, a product of habit and history as much as support for its policies.

Junko Kaneda, 84, who walked by herself through sweltering heat on Sunday to vote at a polling station in Nakano, a neighborhood in western Tokyo, recalled hiding in bomb shelters during World War II air raids. She said she was concerned about the Abe administration’s moves to revise the Constitution and expand Japan’s military powers.

“But in the end,” she said, “I think all we can rely on is the L.D.P.”

The public remains split over constitutional revision. According to exit polls by NHK, about a third of voters said they supported some amendments, while another third said they saw no need to revise the governing document. Previous news media surveys showed even less support for constitutional revision.

Although the governing coalition achieved the two-thirds threshold in Parliament, it is not clear how quickly it could move to change the Constitution. The Liberal Democrats have also proposed amendments that could limit free speech deemed dangerous to the public interest and expand emergency powers for the prime minister.

The Liberal Democrats will have to work with their coalition partners to gain consensus on which parts of the governing document to change. Any amendments must also be approved by a majority in a nationwide referendum.

“We are talking about a tremendously complicated and contentious political process,” said Tobias Harris, a Japan analyst at Teneo Intelligence, a New York political risk consultancy. “The idea that Abe is just going to be able to get whatever he wants is just not the reality.”

Analysts said the governing coalition was unlikely to start with its most controversial proposal, which would revise the constitutional clause renouncing all war.

Last year, when Mr. Abe pushed through legislation giving the military limited powers to fight in foreign conflicts for the first time since World War II, the move set off enormous protests.

Some analysts said they were concerned that if the governing coalition obtained the two-thirds threshold, it could find a way to sway public opinion in a referendum.

“We have all seen what happened with ‘Brexit,’” said Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, referring to the British vote to leave the European Union. “The results can be unpredictable.”

Professor Nakano noted that Mr. Abe’s administration had sought to quiet critical news media coverage and that, most recently, the party had invited students, parents and educators to file online reports of incidents in which they believed a teacher had violated “political neutrality.”

“I cannot be as naïve as to think that there will be free debate in a run-up to a national referendum,” Professor Nakano said.

Other voters were ambivalent. “For revision of the Constitution, I don’t know what we should do,” said Ryuichi Okabayashi, 47, who voted for candidates from opposition parties at an elementary school polling station in Sagamihara, a suburban town southwest of Tokyo. “To be honest, I don’t want to send children to war. But I worry: What if Japan is attacked by China or North Korea? Japan needs military power in such cases.”

Several analysts said Mr. Abe might start with more technical amendments, like one that would change the votes needed to amend the Constitution. “By changing any part of the Constitution, he wants to leave his name in history,” said Ryosuke Nishida, an associate professor of public policy at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Japanese voters who selected opposition candidates on Sunday did so less out of passion than of protest. “I didn’t vote for positive reasons,” said Miu Okada, 30, an office worker in Nakano who said she simply chose a candidate who was not a member of the Liberal Democratic Party or its allies.

Sunday’s election was also the first time that 18- and 19-year-olds had been allowed to vote. Yet many seemed apathetic about their new rights. Minori Hosaka, 18, a computer engineering major at Tokai University walking with a friend in the Akihabara district of Tokyo on the eve of the election, said he was not voting because he had not had time to move his residency from his hometown to Tokyo. Besides, he said, “I am not sure my own single vote can affect anything.”

安倍大勝！日參院選舉 執政黨過修憲門檻

日本參議院選舉開票結果至十一日凌晨截稿前，自民黨、公明黨的席次皆增加，與兩個修憲盟黨衝出一百五十九席，若加上支持修憲的四位無黨籍議員，已突破通過修憲提案的三分之二門檻；至此，日本執政黨在參眾兩院皆有自主提修憲案的實力，日本自民黨總裁、首相安倍晉三十日票還沒開完就已拋出修憲議題，表示將「在國民的充分理解下決定修改哪一條文」。

安倍晉三十日晚間在電視台節目上說，「自民、公明黨獲得改選席次過半數的六十一席，讓我鬆了一口氣」，將加速推動「安倍經濟學」回應選民的期待。

他說，這次選舉非訴求修憲與否，修改日本憲法是自民黨創黨以來的未竟目標，「修憲應通過公民投票，聆聽全體國民的意見。今後會在憲法審查充分討論，在國民的充分理解下，決定修改哪一條文。」

截稿前還有四席未開出，自民黨在本次改選中獲五十五席、公明黨十三席，連未改選席次一百四十四席，執政聯盟穩定過半。修憲盟友大阪維新會、珍惜日本心黨的議員的十五席，及無黨籍四席助陣，修憲布局成形。最大在野黨民進黨有卅一人當選，較上屆退步十二席。

執政黨席次雖大有進展，不過有部分地方用選票「打臉」安倍政府；截稿前兩名現任大臣落馬，福島選民不滿政府的復興重建工作，讓現任法務大臣岩城光英輸給民進黨的增子輝彥，安倍兩次到福島助選，人氣王眾議員小泉進次郎頻繁走動，無法挽回頹勢。

本次選舉是日本降低投票年齡至十八歲的首度全國大選，總務省統計到晚間七點半，日本全國投票率百分之卅六點一四，比三年前更低。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/11/world/asia/japan-vote-parliamentary-elections.html

Video：Big Victory for Shinzo Abe
Mr. Abe, the Japanese prime minister, vowed to focus on economic policies after his coalition was elected to enter the upper house of Parliament with a large majority on Sunday.
http://nyti.ms/29rXBbx

2016-07-11．聯合報．A1．要聞．東京記者雷光涵