The ruling Liberal Democratic Party, to which Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi belongs, scored a landslide victory in the House of Representatives election (general election), easily surpassing the two-thirds threshold needed to introduce a constitutional amendment bill.
According to Kyodo News and others on the 9th, in this election the Liberal Democratic Party won 316 seats, and the coalition partner Japan Innovation Party won 36 seats. In addition, the second-largest opposition party, the Democratic Party for the People, and the right-leaning opposition party, the Sanseitō, both classified as positive toward constitutional revision, secured 28 and 14 seats, respectively.
In Japan, to introduce a constitutional amendment bill, at least two-thirds of lawmakers in both the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors (upper house) must approve. The House of Representatives has 465 seats in total, making 310 the threshold to introduce an amendment bill.
The combined seats of parties friendly to constitutional revision will increase from the previous 261 to 394 after the election, far exceeding 310. Earlier, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party formed a new coalition government in Oct. and agreed to push for constitutional revision going forward.
In their agreement at the time, the two parties decided to establish a drafting council to prepare articles for revisions related to Article 9 of the Constitution and emergency provisions, and to create an article drafting committee within the Diet's Constitutional Review Committee.
Article 9 of Japan's Constitution includes the permanent renunciation of war and the use of force, the nonpossession of army, navy, and air force capabilities, and the denial of the right of belligerency. The emergency provisions allow the government, in the event of a major disaster, armed attack, or large-scale infectious disease outbreak, to set emergency ordinances with the same effect as law without Diet approval.
The Liberal Democratic Party has argued that the Self-Defense Forces, a de facto military, must be explicitly stated in the Constitution through a revision of Article 9. On the 2nd, during a campaign speech, Prime Minister Takaichi said, "Why can't we write the Self-Defense Forces into the Constitution?" and emphasized, "We need to revise the Constitution to make (the Self-Defense Forces) a clearly capable organization."
In addition, the Japan Innovation Party argues for deleting the clause on nonpossession of military capabilities, permitting collective self-defense, and explicitly stating the existence of a national defense military. Among opposition parties supportive of revision, the Democratic Party for the People says the scope of exercising the right of self-defense should be discussed in detail, while the Sanseitō calls for explicitly allowing a military for the right of self-defense.
By contrast, the centrist reform alliance, the largest opposition force, is largely opposed to changing Article 9, and minor opposition parties also oppose constitutional revision or maintain that pacifism should be upheld.
Experts say attention should be paid to the House of Councilors election to be held in the summer of 2028. To introduce a constitutional amendment bill, at least two-thirds of lawmakers in the House of Councilors must also approve, but the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party are known to hold 120 of the 248 total seats, short of a majority.