TOKYO: Japanese Emperor Akihito will address the nation next week, the imperial palace said Friday, following reports that the octogenarian wants to abdicate the throne of one of the world’s oldest monarchies.
An Imperial Household Agency spokesman said Akihito’s address, via video, would be broadcast at 3:00 p.m. (0600 GMT) on Monday.
The 82-year-old, who has been suffering from health problems for years, was not expected to announce explicit plans to step down, as he is constitutionally barred from making political statements.
“The emperor will express his feelings regarding his duties as a symbol” of the nation, the spokesman told AFP.
But Japanese media, including public broadcaster NHK, have widely reported that Akihito would likely hint at his desire to abdicate the Chrysanthemum Throne.
Major media said last month that Akihito expressed to close advisers that he wanted to pass the throne to his eldest son, Crown Prince Naruhito, in the next few years.
The reports came as a surprise to many in Japan where the last abdication happened in 1817, nearly 200 years ago.
Akihito, who has suffered from prostate cancer and heart problems in recent years, spoke of his growing limitations last year.
He acknowledged making unspecified “mistakes” in his duties, which range from native Shinto religious ceremonies to visiting residents in regions hit by Japan’s frequent natural disasters.
Akihito’s second son, Prince Akishino, a few years ago suggested that emperors should be allowed to retire.
The spokesman for the agency, the tradition-steeped government body that manages royal affairs, said no decision had yet been made on how the video would be released.
But Kyodo News reported that the video would be uploaded on the Imperial Household Agency’s website and also broadcast on television.
The possible abdication is a complicated and sensitive issue in Japan, where current law put in place after World War II made the emperor the “symbol of the state” with no provisions for one to step down.
But the highly choreographed event on Monday could well set a process in motion for legal changes that would enable abdication.
According to NHK, the emperor is expected to speak for about 10 minutes.
An unnamed palace official told the broadcaster that officials discussed the possibility of Akihito expressing his feelings in December last year.
But they ultimately decided to continue discussions and secretly started a study session on the issue from the beginning of this year.
“We believe that having the emperor’s feelings heard carefully is most important,” NHK quoted a palace official as saying.
“We chose the most suitable way to deliver the emperor’s words to the public in a secure, precise and comprehensive way,” the official said.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government is planning to release a statement on the same day in response to the emperor’s remarks, NHK reported earlier Friday.
The mass-circulation Yomiuri newspaper said last week that the government plans to set up a panel of experts to discuss revising the law governing the imperial family system as early as this autumn.
The throne is held in deep respect by much of the public, despite being largely stripped of its mystique and quasi-divine status in the aftermath of WWII.
Akihito’s father, Hirohito, in whose name Japan’s military campaigns of the 20th century were carried out, was treated as a living god until defeat in 1945. He died from cancer in 1989.
Japan emperor to address nation
Japan emperor to address nation
A month on, flood-struck Aceh still reels from worst disaster since 2004 tsunami
- Aceh accounts for almost half of death toll in Sumatra floods that struck in November
- Over 450,000 remain displaced as of Friday, as governor extended state of emergency
JAKARTA: Four weeks since floodwaters and torrents of mud swept across Aceh province, villages are still overwhelmed with debris while communities remain inundated, forced to rely on each other to speed up recovery efforts.
The deadly floods and landslides, triggered by extreme weather linked to Cyclone Senyar, hit the provinces of North Sumatra, West Sumatra and Aceh in late November.
Aceh, the westernmost province of Indonesia, was the worst-hit. Accounting for almost half of the 1,137 death toll, a month later more than 450,000 people are still unable to return to their homes, as many struggle to access clean water, food, electricity and medical supplies.
“We saw how people resorted to using polluted river water for their needs,” Ira Hadiati, Aceh coordinator for the Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, or MER-C, told Arab News on Friday.
Many evacuation shelters were also lacking toilets and washing facilities, while household waste was “piling up on people’s lawns,” she added.
In many regions, people’s basic needs “were still unmet,” said Annisa Zulkarnain, a volunteer with Aceh-based youth empowerment organization Svara.
“Residents end up helping each other and that’s still nowhere near enough, and even with volunteers there are still some limitations,” she told Arab News.
Volunteers and aid workers in Aceh have grown frustrated with the central government’s response, which many have criticized as slow and ineffective.
And Jakarta continues to ignore persistent calls to declare the Sumatra floods a national disaster, which would unlock emergency funds and help streamline relief efforts.
“It seems like there’s a gap between the people and the government, where the government is saying that funds and resources have been mobilized … but the fact on the ground shows that even to fix the bridges, it’s been ordinary people working together,” Zulkarnain said.
After spending the past two weeks visiting some of the worst-affected areas, she said that the government “really need to speed up” their recovery efforts.
Aceh Gov. Muzakir Manaf extended the province’s state of emergency for another two weeks starting Friday, while several district governments have declared themselves incapable of managing the disasters.
Entire villages were wiped out by the disastrous floods, which have also damaged more than 115,000 houses across Aceh, along with 141 health facilities, 49 bridges, and over 1,300 schools.
The widespread damage to roads and infrastructure continue to isolate many communities, with residents traveling for hours on foot or with motorbikes in search of basic supplies.
“Even today, some areas are still inundated by thick mud and there are remote locations still cut off because the bridges collapsed. For access, off-road vehicles are still required or we would use small wooden boats to cross rivers,” Al Fadhil, director of Geutanyoe Foundation, told Arab News.
“From our perspective, disaster management this time around is much worse compared to how it was when the 2004 tsunami happened.”
When the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami struck in 2004, Aceh was the hardest-hit of all, with the disasters killing almost 170,000 people in the province.
But MER-C’s Hadiati said that the impact of the November floods and landslides is “more extensive and far worse than the tsunami,” as 18 Acehnese cities and regencies have been affected — about twice more than in the 2004 disaster.
As Friday marks 21 years since the cataclysmic tsunami, Fadhil said the current disaster management was “disorganized,” and lacked leadership and coordination from the central government, factors that played a crucial role after 2004.
“The provincial and district governments in Aceh, they’ve now done all they could with what they have,” he said.
“But their efforts stand against the fact that there’s no entry of foreign aid, no outside support, and a central government insisting they are capable.”
