Japan Extends Term Limit for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

Japan Extends Term Limit for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

March 7, 2017 • From theTrumpet.com

Will an extra three years give Japan’s leader the time he needs to change its Constitution?

By Kieren Underwood

The stability that Prime Minister Shinzō Abe has given Japan is an anomaly in the past three decades of instability. For that reason, Abe’s ruling party is eager to keep him in office. Consequently, on Sunday, the party announced it would extend the term limits for its leaders, meaning Prime Minister Abe may become Japan’s longest-serving postwar leader.

This move is not a behind-closed-doors totalitarian takeover of the Japanese government that you might suspect if you saw the same event occur in an African dictatorship. It involves no change of Japanese law, but merely a change in party policy. According to the previous policy of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (ldp), Prime Minister Abe would have to step down as leader of the party after two three-year terms. The policy was introduced in 1980, when Prime Minister Eisaku Sato’s eight-year service from 1964 to 1972 was criticized for concentrating too much power in one man. The ldp has simply made the decision to extend that limit to three terms, a total of nine years.

Since 1955, the ldp has dominated politics so thoroughly that it has only lost leadership of Japan twice in 62 years. The Japan Times pointed out, “Given the ldp’s long hold on power, its rules on presidential terms effectively determine the tenure of the prime minister.” Writing while the party discussed the change last September, the Times continued:

Party elders involved in the discussions deny that they’re merely seeking to keep Abe at the helm. … One point about the ldp presidency rules should be sorted out. When Abe was reelected party chief a year ago, the rule at that point dictated that the new three-year term he was given was going to be his last. It must have been the understanding of ldp lawmakers who either supported his reelection or who gave up challenging him that he would not be running again in 2018. Altering this regulation now—and making it applicable to Abe—smacks of changing the rules in the middle of the game.

To the Western reader, the name Liberal Democratic Party might give the impression that Abe’s party leans to the left of the political spectrum. Not so. (“The Cryptic Nationalist Group Steering Japan” in the March edition of the Trumpet explains the party’s ideological roots.)

The ldp has three factions, one of which is the nationalist Japan Democratic Party. Its minister of defense, Tomomi Inada, and among many others visit the Yasukuni Shrine. The shrine is a war memorial that honors those who have died in the service of Japan, including hundreds who were enshrined after being designated war criminals. Visits to the shrine cause outrage in surrounding Asian nations who were victims of the Japanese empire.

Abe’s party has been the driving force behind recent changes in the interpretation of the Japanese Constitution. Japan is considered a “pacifist” nation because Article 9 states that Japan “forever renounce[s] war as a sovereign right.” Yet Japanese troops are now stationed in South Sudan. Prime Minister Abe is the most powerful supporter of further changes to the Constitution. There are dissenters within the party of course, but on the whole, the ldp adopts a policy principle of “taking a practical step towards proposing amendments to the Constitution.”

As the term-limit extension was announced, Agence France-Presse reported Abe saying: “The ldp will lead concrete discussion towards proposing amendments to the Constitution. This is the ldp’s historic role, isn’t it?”

In effect, the term-limit extension will give Abe the chance to push ahead with the ldp’s “historical role”—turning Japan away from pacifism and re-creating the nation as a proactive military power.

If Abe runs for another term and is successful, he could be prime minister until 2021. No one can tell whether he will last that long or whether he will be able to push forward with his constitutional changes. Scandals surrounding his wife, Akie, have been growing, and there’s no telling whether they will catch hold. Nevertheless, Abe’s popularity is still around 60 percent, and the party trusts that he is the one to lead the transitioning nation. The extra three years would give Japan’s “constitutional scholars” time to reinterpret some more clauses and the ldp time to normalize and extend the use of Japan’s “Self-Defense” Force. Maybe Shinzo Abe will be the man to finally push through historic changes on Article 9. Maybe it will be someone else. What is sure, is that Japan’s ultra-dominant party, the ldp, is in line with Abe’s vision.

The above-mentioned article from the March Trumpet quoted Herbert W. Armstrong’s forecast that “Japan would awake from its postwar slumber, cast off the pacifism the U.S. imposed on it, and return to formidable militarism” (Plain Truth, March 1971). Mr. Armstrong continued:

Japan today has no military establishment. But we should not lose sight of the fact that Japan has become so powerful economically that it could build a military force of very great power very rapidly.

“Fearmongering!” no doubt, was the accusation of many when they read that in 1971. It’s no longer far-fetched. Many Japanese politicians are putting forward the same proposals themselves. Whether Prime Minister Abe will be the one to make a militaristic Japan a reality is still to be seen. But the term-limit extension will give him a few more years to make it happen. Readers of the Trumpet will do well to continue watching Japan’s transition. For more on this trend, read “Why the Trumpet Monitors Japan’s March Away From Pacifism and Toward Militarism.” ▪