By Masato Kamikubo
Despite fierce resistance to the bills, the debate was a win for Japan’s democracy.
Japan’s ruling government coalition of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito passed and enacted new security legislation despite strong resistance by opposition parties in the House of Councilors. While there was fierce resistance to the bills, the truth is Japan’s democracy worked.
To prevent passage of the legislation, five opposition parties used a variety of tactics: trying to block the holding of a committee meeting; tabling a no-confidence motion against the committee chairperson; submitting a series of censure motions against the prime minister and Cabinet ministers; submitting a no-confidence motion against the Cabinet in the House of Representatives; and filibustering by opposition members. Such tactics are legitimate in a parliamentary democracy. But passage of the law was inevitable because the ruling coalition has secured a stable majority with victories in three consecutive national elections.
At first glance, it looks as if the opposition views are widely supported by the general public in Japan, but it is difficult to determine objectively whether that is the real majority opinion. Opposition parties claim “a hundred million people oppose the security legislation.” In truth, though, supporters of the legislation are quieter than those who oppose it. Results of a Sankei-FNN Joint Public Opinion Poll showed that only 3.4 percent of the population joined meetings to oppose the security legislation, including meetings in the area surrounding the Diet. Moreover, the proportion of those opposed to the legislation was 50 percent on average, according to the results of public opinion polls in newspapers such as the Yomiuri, Nikkei, Kyodo, Mainichi, and Asahi in June or July 2015. They accurately described public opinion as divided in two and demonstrations on the streets created an image that the opposition was more representative of the majority than the minority.
If the opposition is the majority, then the regular process of parliamentary democracy would be sufficient to settle the dispute through discussion and voting in the Diet.
Read the full story at The Diplomat