The House of Representatives passed a bill Friday that would allow the dispatch of Self-Defense Forces elements to Iraq.
The three ruling parties supported the bill while all members of the opposition camp voted against it.
Hiromu Nonaka and Makoto Koga, two heavyweights of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, abstained from voting in an apparent protest over the standing vote taken on the bill. They argued that a bill which puts the lives of SDF personnel on the line should have been voted on in an open ballot.