A private funeral is planned for Tuesday for Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, who stepped down in 2020. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a brief stop on Monday to offer condolences on behalf of President Joe Biden. “I shared with our Japanese colleagues the sense of loss, the sense of shock that we all feel — the connected people feel — at this horrible tragedy,” Blinken said. “But mostly, I came at the president’s behest because more than allies, we are friends. And when a friend hurts, other friends show up.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepares to address the media before boarding his plane at Yokota Air Base in Fussa on the outskirts of Tokyo on Monday. Blinken made an unscheduled stop to offer personal condolences over the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. (Stefani Reynolds/The Associated Press)
Grim election victory
In elections held on Sunday, Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its ruling coalition partner extended their majority in the upper house of parliament. The results give Kishida a chance to consolidate his power after taking over from Yoshihide Suga, who lasted just one year in power as Abe’s successor. With a majority already in place in the Lower House, what would have been a celebratory mood at LDP headquarters under normal circumstances turned somber. A minute’s silence for Abe was observed in his memory and Kishida’s face remained grim as he pinned rosettes next to the winners’ names on a board as a symbol of their victory. The LDP and its junior partner Komeito won 76 of the 125 seats up for grabs in parliament, up from 69 previously. The LDP alone won 63 seats, out of 55, to win a majority of contested seats, although it did not have a simple majority on its own. With no elections scheduled for another three years, Kishida has been given unusually wide space to try to implement an ambitious agenda that includes expanding defense spending and revising Japan’s pacifist constitution — a longtime dream of Abe’s before ill health took him in his resignation. Kishida told a news conference that he would deal with difficult problems that Abe has been unable to resolve, such as revising the constitution, adding that he hoped there would be discussions on the issue during the next parliament session. “We have gained power from the voters for stable governance of this nation,” Kishida said. The hearse carrying the body of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrives at Zojoji Temple for the wake on Monday. (Hiro Komae/The Associated Press) Tetsuya Yamagami, a 41-year-old unemployed man, is accused by police of approaching Abe and opening fire during a campaign speech in the western Japanese city of Nara on Friday. The attack, captured on video, shocked a nation where gun violence is rare. The suspect’s mother was a member of the Unification Church, but Yamagami himself was not, said Tomihiro Tanaka, president of the Japanese branch of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, known as the Unification Church. Yamagami believed Abe had promoted a religious group to which his mother made a “huge donation,” Kyodo news agency reported, citing investigative sources. Yamagami told police that his mother went bankrupt from the donation, the Yomiuri newspaper and other media reported. Reuters could not immediately contact Yamagami’s mother and could not determine whether he belonged to other religious organizations.
