1st LD Writethru: 2 parties eye alliance to become Japan's biggest opposition party despite security law rift

TOKYO, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Two of Japan's opposition parties on Monday exchanged a document on consensus on their basic policies as they agreed to form an alliance in parliament.

While an official merger has not yet been confirmed, Motohisa Furukawa, secretary general of the Party of Hope and Teruhiko Mashiko, who serves the same position in the Democratic Party, vowed to create an alliance that could challenge the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

If the merger comes to fruition, the alliance would create the largest opposition group in both chambers of Japan's parliament, overtaking the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ).

Launched by Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike just prior to the Oct. 22 lower house election, the Party of Hope absorbed a number of conservatives from the Democratic Party to run on its ticket, while many liberals from the then moribund Democratic Party joined the CDPJ ahead of the election.

The two parties have been at odds, however, over contentious security legislation that was forced into law in 2016 despite mass public and political opposition, with the Democratic Party maintaining that part of the legislation is unconstitutional.

The legislation led to a reinterpretation of a key pacifist clause in Japan's constitution, allowing Japan's Self-Defense Forces to exercise collective self-defense.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, also the leader of the LDP, has proposed amending Article 9 of the Constitution for the first time since World War II to achieve his controversial career goal of normalizing Japan's military force and broadening its international footprint.

Abe's aims to further loosen the constraints on Japan's military by way of amending Japan's Supreme Law requires two-thirds majority support in both chambers of parliament and a majority in a public referendum.

The contentious notion is opposed by the majority of Japanese citizens according to the latest media polls and has raised concerns in the regional and international community.

This is owing to Japan's past wartime atrocities and propensity to whitewash them and continued increases to its military spending and planned acquisition of next-generation offensive military hardware under Abe.

Such acquisitions run contrary to Japan's anti-war, defense-only Constitution, legal scholars and military analysts have attested, and could further unsettle regional peace and stability and escalate a potential arms race.

According to one section of the document exchanged on Monday between the two parties' secretary generals the parties will "conduct necessary reviews, including parts which are pointed out as unconstitutional."

The two parties may officially confirm the alliance later this week, with Mashiko quoted as saying a merger could happen if momentum increased within the parties.

If the move were to happen, the number of members of the two parties in the more powerful lower house of parliament would stand at 65, compared to 54 of the CDPJ. Enditem