Japan Press Weekly

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2016 August 3 - 9 [POLITICS]

Abe reshuffles Cabinet with eye to carry out his ambition for constitutional revision

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo on August 3 announced the reshuffled Abe Cabinet members. With this rearrangement, the prime minister obviously aims to accelerate his anti-people policies and make a strong push on his attempt to adversely revise the pacifist Constitution.

The PM retained nine Cabinet ministers, including Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Aso Taro, and Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio. PM appointed Inada Tomomi, who is known as an ultra-right-wing hawk and a constitutional revisionist, as Defense Minister.

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira on the same day held a press conference in the Diet building and commented on the Cabinet reshuffle. Mentioning the fact that most of the key ministers were retained, he stressed that PM Abe intends to not only continue but to step up his runaway policies under the new Cabinet.

Koike pointed out that new Defense Minister Inada Tomomi has been proclaiming the need to set up a national defense force by revising Article 9 of the Constitution. “The PM’s choice of such a person as Defense Minister clearly indicates the dangerous nature of the new Cabinet,” he said.

Koike criticized Abe for selecting his Cabinet members with the aim to implement constitutional amendment as well as to push forward with the failed “Abenomics” economic policies, adverse revisions to labor laws, and ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact. Koike stressed, “The new Abe Cabinet will give a boost to all aspects of Abe’s anti-people policies. The JCP will squarely confront the Abe Cabinet on all fronts.”