Japan Ex PM Criticizes Successor Over ‘Forcefully’ Enacted Security Bill

Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi criticized his successor Shinzo Abe for "forcefully" enacting the controversial bill allowing the country's military deployment abroad in an offensive posture, local media reported Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The Japanese parliament voted a package of security bills into law in September, paving way toward the first deployment of Japan’s military abroad since World War II.

"I would have deferred until the next Diet [Japanese parliament] session," The Japan Times daily quoted Koizumi saying in an interview with a monthly magazine.

The former prime minister argued his fellow Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) member "appears to be in a rush" and "always gets things done forcefully."

Thousands Japanese citizens protested the new law, which scraps Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution and allows the country’s Self-Defense Force to be sent overseas as a belligerent.

Abe succeeded Koizumi for a year in 2006, then regained office in 2012.