amid shock and disbelief japanese voters went to the polls over the weekend and handed a victory
to the party of former prime minister shinzo abe who was shot and killed last friday the government
led by his longtime close associate prime minister fumio kishida now has large majorities in both
houses of the diet so what led to this wave of support for the liberal democratic party and how
will the party use it in the next few years with its power in the legislature virtually
unchallenged for closer look at these issues we're pleased to welcome to the program this
evening walter sim japan correspondent for the straits times good evening walter thanks so much
for coming on the program thank you well we'll get into the the election in just a minute but tell us
about uh prime minister abe's legacy you wrote a bit about this over the weekend lots of praise for
the late leader in japan and around the world less discussion perhaps of the flaws in his policies
considering the circumstances tell us in your view though what prime minister abe accomplished
in his long service and perhaps some recently overlooked elements of his policies no i i suppose
the seeming lack of focus on his flaws is kind of understandable given how shocking and how recent
the assassination wars and but we are right in pointing out that there has been a lot of praise
especially from western countries overseas uh this i think is warranted especially since mr abe was
someone who really lived the japan's profile and asserted the country on the global stage after
years of waning influence um but of course his domestic record also stands up to scrutiny well mr
abe deserves recognition for being japan's longest serving prime minister and that's quite a feat
given how japan is well known for its revolving door of leaders of leaders um there are always
two sides of the coin we look look look at albino mix it was on the one side of the coin it did help
jump start the economy but on the other side of this coin it widened income disparities womenomics
is also pretty much a work in progress and women continue to face a lot of social pressures in
japan mr abe was also focused on revising the constitution but failed in this attempt though
it appears that the changing security environment is giving um giving mr kishida increasing momentum
to do so uh mr abe's relative political dominance also led to this form of complacency i think that
kind of resulted in the chronism scandals that eventually hurt his leadership
right and we'll go to the get to the new power that kishi defines himself with right now but uh
just real quick the suspect behind the killing of prime minister abe do we know anything more about
him there's this religious group that we hear about that the authorities are not naming anything
come out over the weekend yes so the police have still not named the religious group but today
just this afternoon the unification church held a news conference saying that the suspect tatsuya
yamagami's mother was in fact a member of the church and has been since the late 1990s whilst
reverend tommy hilo tanaka refused to be drawn into speculation as to whether it was in fact the
unification church that yamagami had held a grudge against citing ongoing police investigations i
think the news conference shed light on quite a number of theories that have emerged over the
weekend so yamagami's mother in fact had declared bankruptcy in 2002 and the church said that there
are no records of the church asking for large sums of donations from the family since then
the church also did say that abe whilst he was not a member he was a supporter of this world peace
movement that was promoted by the church's leader and had also sent video messages to the church and
its affiliated groups as well but of course this also raises quite a number of questions
including why it was now that yama gaming snapped and not 20 years ago when the bankruptcy happened
so what happened what transpired in a year since i think there are still a lot of holes to be plucked
okay still a lot of unanswered questions well to the election uh what is it that led to this big
win for uh mr abe's party over the weekend um and uh what what is what is the um what is the party
going to do with this with these this gain of seats in the uh less powerful chamber of the diet
the upper house right so there there was quite a lot of speculation over the kind of impact that
mr base ascensination would have on the election results but as it appears i think the impact was
in fact quite minimal um the ldp was expected to win handily and did win handily and so especially
given that you know the opposition in japan is very weak and disjointed um unlike in previous
elections they failed to unify behind a single candidate in many of the single seat districts and
i think this resulted in a split vote that would have happened anyway if mr rb had not been killed
another telling sign i think was a seeming lack of voter interest um turnout was just 52 so the
killing obviously did not really galvanize a lot of people more people to go to the ballot
boxes whilst this figure was higher than in 2019 it's still lower than the 54 percent i
think that was set in 2016. um as for the policy wise well i i think uh mr kishida also said in a
news conference today that he would uphold mr abby's legacy as much as possible so i think
this is a sign that mr keisha will likely move forward on constitutional revision
especially since the ldp now have the numbers in both the lower and upper houses uh when combined
with its coalition partner committee as well as two other pro pro amendment opposition parties
um so with this in mind i do think that mr kishida would put constitutional revision as top of the uh
a prior policy agenda but what is less clear i think is whether mr mr kesher will continue to
you know pursue um uh mr abe's economic policy he has been kind of upholding a version of ubinomics
even though he has his own ideas on how to pursue what he terms a new form of capitalism so i think
economy-wise it might be quite interesting to see what mr kishida does going forward
and you say constitutional amendment could be on the table now could you help us understand
a little bit more about uh what exactly would go into the amendment uh and perhaps
what the opposition would look like and just a general picture of what that process looks like
right um so to to change the constitution for the first time since it was enacted in 1947 um would
require the support of two thirds of lawmakers in both the lower and upper house of the parliament
and then the and then once approval is given it has to get a simple majority in
the public referendum so there's still quite a number of hurdles before the constitution
can be changed uh mr kishida's ldp intends to change the the supreme law in a number of ways
um most primarily i think a lot of attention has been on article 9 and what mr kishida
intends to do with it he says that oh the wall renouncing pacifist clauses will not be touched
but what the ldp intends to do is to codify the self-defense forces into the documents so as to
leave without any room for of doubt of the sef's legitimacy uh and and i think that you know this
uh the the question well of course there are questions as to whether this is even necessary
given that the sdf has existed for so many years but uh well i i think mr kishido would be working
very hard to win the public's understanding of the need uh to codify the sdf especially with
the changing security environment going forward well finally walter with this bigger majority now
held by the ldp and its allies do you see that affecting policy towards the korean peninsula
it seems right now that uh south korea and japan could be on course for a rapprochement of sorts
right definitely and i do think that the two countries are on course for warmer and
better times are hit mr kishida i must say was foreign minister in 2015 when japan and korea
concluded the comfort women agreement and i think under mr kishida japan also recognizes
the importance to build good relations with south korea especially in light of the current
geopolitical environment um the fact that you know president moon is also a minimal and very
uh appears to be very warm towards building restoring japan relations i think also plays
a big part in this and so i think this positive momentum will continue though of course i think a
lot will depend on how both countries navigate the current outstanding issue world war time labor um
if but if they come to a consensus if they come to an agreement and if there are no major incidents
i think both countries are assisted on track to building better ties well that would be a relief
i think to see that happen walter walter sim japan correspondent for the straits times thank
you very much for coming on the program this evening we appreciate it thank you