The Abe government adamantly pursues policies to destroy the constitutional system and undermine people’s sovereignty. But people are ready not to allow it to go dictatorial; they object and protest, besieging parliament which has become hollow. It is high time when united struggles are essential to make concrete changes in politics. The year 2014 is crucial to people.


REATREAT IS IMPOSSIBLE


The Abe government had hidden its aggressiveness until July last year when the Upper House election was held. Immediately after winning the majority in the race, it has revealed true nature. One policy is to form the nation so that it could go to a war, and the other is to accelerate competitions to favor winners.


The Abe government has lately established the National Security Council and approved the Act to Protect Specified Secretes, after it had found it hard to revise Article 96 of the constitution*. The government approves the right of collective defense, which is unconstitutional, deregulates the rules for weapons’ export. It goes straightly to waging a war by way of a plan to enact a basic law on national security in the coming ordinary Diet session to destroy the Constitution.


It provokes tensions with the neighboring countries in the diplomatic performance. It defines nuclear power as a major electricity source and commits in the nuclear fuel cycle program in its energy policy.


People owe Costs


From April the consumption tax rate will be heightened. Multinational corporations, which are sole winners, hate to owe social costs and advocate a system in which people help mutually. The so-called reform in the social services, which has been proclaimed to combine with a surge of the consumption tax rate, has been proven to be a tool to rob benefits of people. That means the tax rose but services degraded in the excuse to maintain the programs. People pay more to receive less.


Budget cuts in the pensions and Life Protection services served as an initial breakthrough. Social services to guarantee people’s living are based on the standard set by the Life Protection services and therefore less expenditure affects on broader spheres. In the labor sector the workers’ dispatch system will be urged to prevail: the government plans to create special areas where labor laws should be annulled to open a way to make employers happy.


The TPP negotiation represents a goal as well as an accelerator of the government’s policy package.


People are aware of critical situation


People are worried about the Abe government’s initiative: poverty and a way to go to a war. Protest movements continue across the country and around the parliament building; they were intense, in particular, last December when the extraordinary session of the Diet ended. People could not rely on legislators chosen in the election system which the judiciary ruled as unconstitutional.


One of the first movements is Friday campaigns staged around the official residence of Prime Minister since the days immediately after the Fukushima accident in 2011. People oppose the nuclear energy program. Another one is objection of resumption of operation at the nuclear power plants under suspension. Protest campaigns are waged nationwide, being a time bomb.


These mass movements mean that people, who have been protected by the constitution, become aware of necessity to defend it which has Article 12 saying ‘the freedom and rights guaranteed to the people by this Constitution shall be maintained by the constant endeavor of the people’.


We must win in various elections


Our task is to win in the elections to integrate results of mass movements. The first objective is to win in the Upper House election scheduled in July 2016 and in the general elections for the Lower House to cope with one-party dominance by the Liberal Democratic Party.


An initial step is local elections to be held nationwide in 2015. To this end we must exert utmost efforts, relying on confidence gained in the mass movements.


We must be determined that retreat is impossible.


*Article 96= amendments to this constitution shall be initiated by the Diet, through a concurring vote of two-thirds or more of all the members of each House. The government wanted to change the rate to a single majority.


January 1, 2014