More than two months have passed since the Diet began debating the Constitution for the first time. It is too early to predict how the debate at the Constitutional Review Council will develop, but conservative hardliners both in and outside the ruling coalition are already talking up the need to rewrite Article 9.

Article 9, which defines the nation's defense and security policy, is the most controversial part of the national charter. The question of whether to revise it, therefore, far outweighs other revision issues, including new provisions for the right to a clean environment and public assistance for private universities. This question will become a hot political issue.

In the general election that is expected to be held late in June, advocates of rewording this particular clause should depart from their usual practice of blaring hollow slogans and try to convey their specific views on this topic to the voters. Most of the proponents of change, who belong to the three conservative parties -- the Liberal Democratic Party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party -- give these reasons for an amendment: