Photo/Illutration Members of the Lower House Commission on the Constitution vote to pass a bill to amend the national referendum law during a session on May 6. (The Asahi Shimbun)

The Diet is expected to soon enact a bill to amend the national referendum law, paving the way for a possible national referendum on revising the Constitution.

The bill, which has been before the Diet for almost three years now, made significant progress after the ruling coalition agreed to opposition amendments, and the legislation cleared a parliamentary hurdle.

Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, met his counterpart in the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Tetsuro Fukuyama, at the Diet building on May 6.

Nikai told Fukuyama that the ruling coalition will accept the CDP’s proposed revisions to the bill to amend the law, which sets out the procedures for making constitutional amendments, sources said.

The bill was put to a vote and passed at the May 6 session of the Lower House Commission on the Constitution.

The CDP has called for adding provisions to the bill that would regulate TV and radio advertising related to a national referendum.

It also drafted a revision that would add a section stating that necessary legislative measures should be taken within three years after the revised law takes effect.

The ruling coalition had been deliberating over its response to the proposed revisions since the CDP presented them at the end of last month.

The bill to revise the national referendum law has been years in the making, originally submitted to the Diet in June 2018. All seven amendments currently up for consideration, including setting up polling stations at large commercial facilities, are features that have already been adopted in elections.

But the bill was carried over into the ninth Diet session due to the opposition bloc dragging its collective heels over holding a vote on the bill, which would set the stage for constitutional revision.

Nikai and Fukuyama agreed in December 2020 not to hold a vote on the bill during the extraordinary session of the Diet, which closed later that month, and to reach some conclusion on the matter during the ordinary Diet session, which was convened in January.

Nikai and Keiichi Ishii, secretary-general of the LDP’s junior coalition partner, Komeito, agreed to accept the CDP’s proposed revisions to the bill during their May 5 meeting.

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