On May 3, DP President Katsuya Okada issued the following statement.

Today marks the 69th anniversary of the promulgation of the Japanese Constitution.  Our Constitution, which is based on the three basic principles of “the sovereignty of the people”, “pacifism” and “respect for fundamental human rights”, has been nurtured by the Japanese people over many years and forms the keystone of post-war Japan’s freedom and democracy, and of our peace and prosperity.

In the party platform we established when our party was founded, we stated that we would resolutely hold fast to a constitutionalism based on freedom and democracy and work together with the people to conceive a future-oriented constitution that responds to the needs of the changing times.

However, the Constitution is now facing a huge crisis.  

Prime Minister Abe makes no secret of his ambition to revise the Constitution, and is aiming to obtain a two-thirds majority in both lower and upper houses of the Diet in order to accomplish this.  The actions of the Abe administration in changing the interpretation of the Constitution to allow use of the right to collective self-defence and in forcibly enacting security-related legislation show a total absence of understanding of true constitutionalism and pacifism and have gravely damaged these principles.  The administration is now embarking on their main goal of constitutional revision.

Under such circumstances, this summer’s House of Councillors election is truly a turning point for Japanese politics.  Should the LDP administration led by Prime Minister Abe gain victory, the revision of Article 9 of the Constitution to allow unrestricted use of the right to collective self-defence would become a certainty, and Japan would be catapulted into becoming a “normal nation”.  This would drastically alter the basis of the pacifism that is the foundation of the Constitution, a principle born out of the suffering and remorse of WWII, one that maintains Japan will never engage in the use of force as a means of resolving an international conflict.  

The Democratic Party will confront head-on the grave challenge posed by the Abe administration as it moves to change the shape of Japan.  On this Constitution Memorial Day, we pledge once again to the Japanese people that we will stop the out-of-control Abe administration at the forthcoming House of Councillors election and general election, preventing them from carrying out misguided constitutional revision and succeeding in defending the pacifism that forms the basis of the Constitution.