Roundup: Abe, cabinet facing censuring, no-confidence motions in 11th hour push to enact war bills

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition under the stewardship of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday it is pushing for the enactment of controversial security bills to bolster the nation's military clout in a monumental shift of postwar security policy.

However, the public and opposition parties still remain staunchly opposed to the move.

While a vote on the contentious security bills may come as early as Wednesday evening, according to sources close to the matter, following a local hearing, with LDP officials adamant that the bills be enacted by the end of the week, tensions are mounting between the ruling bloc and the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and smaller opposition parties opposed to Abe's war moves, who are looking to delay their enactment and ultimately see them scrapped.

Coupled with this, regular members of the public, whose anti- war and anti-Abe sentiments have been reflected in daily protests at the national Diet building in Tokyo, are also continuing to denounce the ruling party's war trajectory, with the majority of citizens here calling for the bills to be scraped, Japan's decades- old, war-renouncing Constitution to be upheld and for Abe to step down for his unilateral forced passage of the constitutionally- unsound bills through the lower house.

In addition, the public here, according to the latest media polls, is overwhelmingly opposed to Abe's plans to bolster the scope of the Self-Defense Forces, which the prime minister wants to see operate as a normalized military domestically, regionally and globally, in what Abe has described as a "proactive" security role.

But the opposition camp headed by the DPJ is planning to delay the upper house vote for as long as possible and may end up boycotting the vote entirely, as the vast majority of legal experts, constitutional authorities and scholars have unequivocally stated that the passage of the bills into law would be in violation of Japan's Constitution and thus the nation's Supreme Law.

Yukio Edano, secretary general of the DPJ said Wednesday that there is absolutely no doubt that history will prove that it is a monumental error for Abe and the ruling bloc to enact bills by force or by exploiting their voting powers in both chambers of parliament that run contrary to the nation's Constitution.

He added that parties including the DPJ that stood opposed to the bills would do everything in their power to block the bills.

And as the eleventh hour approaches for the opposition parties moves to block or delay the bills' enactment into law, officials from the DPJ confirmed Wednesday that if Abe and the ruling camp insist on moving to enact the bills, they will submit to parliament's lower chamber a non-confidence motion against Abe's Cabinet and a censure motion against Abe himself in the upper house. Endi