>The opposition’s obstructionist tactics delayed Mr. Abe’s victory until after 2 a.m., but could not prevent it.
Apparently the manner in which the vote was made was "trick play" like, quickly executed without warning, and caught opposition party members by surprise. I wasn't aware that such tactics were available.
And before that, they gave up on amending the constitution and settled for reinterpreting it because that would be less work. They basically hacked this into law. Why so desperate? And would the Obama administration really endorse this? Because that is what many "experts" are speculating. Basically no one knows, but it all just non-consensually moves forward. Isn't there a word for this? Tyranny? Definitely not democracy.
Also gathered constitutional experts, tasked them to research whether this would be constitutional (expecting them to say it was). When they concluded it wasn't, the gvt apologized for hiring the wrong folks, and moved on.
> And would the Obama administration really endorse this?
The U.S government has been trying to get Japan to amend its constitution since the late 60s. So yeah, I believe every administration up to this point would have endorsed this. The U.S government has been the one pushing Japan to militarize. They've been pushing for decades.
the debates for it have been going on for weeks. They announced the vote at the beginning of the week.
Concretely, nothing could have prevented this outcome, because the Prime Minister's party has such a huge majority. There have been massive protests for a while now too, but that didn't seem to sway things as much.
A silver lining is that there seems to be a renewed interest in the constitution itself, It is a product of the American occupation, originally written in English, by US lawyers.
Though that might not change the good/badness of it's contents, it does smell a bit of colonialism.
It wasn't colonialism. Japan was occupied as the result of losing their own colonial war. The US was trying to prevent them from starting another one in the future.
Apparently the manner in which the vote was made was "trick play" like, quickly executed without warning, and caught opposition party members by surprise. I wasn't aware that such tactics were available.