Japan lower house OKs bill allowing emperor to abdicate
A bill allowing 83-year-old Emperor Akihito to abdicate cleared the more powerful chamber of Japan’s parliament on Friday, setting the stage for his elder son to succeed the Chrysanthemum throne.
The bill, approved unanimously by the lower house, now moves to the upper house for enactment expected next week. An abdication, which under the bill would need to take place within three years, would be Japan’s first in 200 years.
Akihito expressed his apparent wish to abdicate last summer, citing his age and health.
That revived a debate about the country’s 2,000-year-old monarchy, one of the world’s oldest, as well as discussion about improving the status of female members of the shrinking royal population. The current male-only succession rules prohibit women from succeeding to the Chrysanthemum Throne and female members lose their royal status when they marry a commoner.
Akihito was 56 years old when he ascended the throne in January 1989 after the death of his father, Emperor Hirohito. Crown Prince Naruhito, the first in line to succession, is 57, but his only child is a girl.
