ISHIHARA Hirotaka

Hirotaka Ishihara is a member of the House of Representatives, first elected in 2005. He is also a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and affiliated with multi-party parliamentary groups related to two major conservative organizations, Nippon Kaigi (日本会議) and the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership (神道政治連盟), which both have pushed for constitutional revision. Hirotaka’s father, Shintarō Ishihara, is a well-known novelist and conservative politician who was formerly the governor of Tokyo and a Diet member.

His personal website contains a constitutional discussion between himself and a constitutional scholar, Tatsuhiko Yamamoto (山本龍彦). Featuring a wide range of topics such as security, national referendums for constitutional revision, establishment of a constitutional court, introduction of direct election of prime minister, and new concepts of human rights to protect privacy and the environment, Ishihara and Yamamoto argued that the Japanese people should be open to constitutional discussions to update the constitution to match today’s status of Japan. Ishihara states that the right of collective self-defense should be allowed and stipulated in a revised Article 9. He also states, however, that more discussion is necessary to prevent reckless war.