Japan's LDP lawmaker denounces Abe's security policies

TOKYO - A veteran lawmaker from Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Tuesday wept during a press conference denouncing that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's effort to ram a series of controversial security bills is jeopardizing the country's postwar pacifism.

Seiichiro Murakami, a 62-year-old lawmaker, criticized the bills which are under parliament debate are questionable and unconstitutional.

"I feel that since the bills have been discussed in the Diet every day, the more problems and contradictions come out," Murakami told the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

The security legislation will allow Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) exercise the right to collective self-defense, or to engage armed conflicts overseas when Japan's allies are attacked, even Japan itself is not under attack.

The legislation architected by the ruling camp including the LDP and its small partner of the Komeito Party goes against the country's war-renouncing Constitution which bans the SDF from combating abroad and helping defend others.

"I think the only way to realize the use of right to collective self-defense is to amend the current pacifist Constitution and to seek the vote of Japanese people. If the majority of the Japanese people agree with it, the government could go ahead, if they oppose it, the government should drop the plan," said Murakami.

He criticized Abe's move to reinterpret the Constitution to allow Japan to exercise the right to collective defense is a trick hollowing the country's supreme law.

"It undermines the principle of rule of law," said the LDP member.

Although Murakami, who joined the LDP in 1986, admits that he is a rebelling of the party headed by Abe, he considers that he is a real conservative that represents the real LDP.

"As a person who was educated under the postwar education system, I believe that the principle of pacifism, the sovereignty of people and respect of basic human rights should be something absolutely can not be changed," Murakami wept.

Though Murakami is the only one in the LDP who publicly criticizes Abe's security policies, he said there are many moderate and liberal politicians within the LDP who are unhappy with the current state of the party.

During the press conference, Murakami also noted that about 98 percent of Japan's constitutional experts saw the security legislation violates Japan's constitution.

The Abe's administration encountered unprecedented opposition over the security bills as nearly 60 percent of Japanese population are against the legislation with constant protests grouping academics, journalists, college students, salary men and the retired are held near the Diet building or in downtown Tokyo.

Currently, the ruling LDP is trapped in a scandal in which some of its lawmakers spouted that some media should be punished for their negative reports on the security legislation, giving the opposition parties a tongue to blast on the ruling camp and its security bills.