Some 36 percent of people oppose the idea of adding a new clause specifying the existence of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to the Constitution while retaining the two paragraphs of the war-renouncing Article 9, a Mainichi Shimbun survey has revealed.
Furthermore, in the same nationwide poll, which was conducted between June 17 and 18, 27 percent of respondents said that they agree with an SDF clause being added to the supreme law, while 30 percent said they were uncertain.
On May 3, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe revealed his plan to enact a revised Constitution in 2020. However, in this latest Mainichi Shimbun poll, it was found that 60 percent of respondents think that, "There is no need to rush (concerning discussions about revising the Constitution)," while only 25 percent think that "there is a need to rush." These results are similar to those found in a previous Mainichi poll in May, in the sense that the overriding stance concerning constitutional amendment talks is one of caution.
However, with regard to the issue of specifying the existence of the SDF in the Constitution, the questions in the May survey were different to those in the June poll -- making it difficult to make a straightforward comparison. Nevertheless, in the previous survey, the results in response to the corresponding question about mentioning the SDF in the supreme law were 31 percent "against," 28 percent "in favor," and 32 percent "uncertain."
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