Japan General Discussion: Abe Carries On

[Dereich]

Has there been any chatter or developments on the future of the opposition?

I think the opposition (or at least the left-opposition in the form of the CDP) is actually probably best served by staying divided; one of the big problems for the DPJ was always that its coalition was too fractious, such that it was unable to set forth what it stood for other than opposition to the LDP, which was never enough except when the LDP was catastrophically unpopular (and then led to three years of divided and feckless governance). A more ideologically unified opposition party stands to do better and carve out its own niche.

Would it though? It's not like the Japanese Socialist Party did much better for forty years before reforming into the DJP.

[Dereich]

So my understanding is that even though LDP-KP has the 2/3 majority it needs in both houses to pass its constitutional amendments through the Diet, it will still need to pass in a popular referendum. Have there been opinion polls on this? Are the people still generally pacifist despite consistently delivering supermajorities to revisionist parties? How would the referendum campaign shake out once it actually began? Would turnout be higher than the rather low GE turnout? Which sides would prefer higher/lower turnout?

Komeito isn't really in favor of removing pacifism from the constitution and has dragged its feet and stalled whenever the issue came up in the past. I believe Komeito's reluctance to amend the constitution is the main reason it still hasn't happened, even though Abe has tried several times and had his super-majority before now. I'd think that they'll do the same thing this time around and stall until public pressure forces Abe to back down again.