The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which Abe has led for nearly a decade, and the smaller coalition party increased their upper house majority on Sunday, two days after Abe was shot during a campaign speech in the western city of Nara. . The LDP and Komeito won 76 of the 125 seats up for grabs in an election overshadowed by the first assassination of a Japanese leader in nearly 90 years. The election in Japan’s less powerful chamber of parliament had nothing to do with the makeup of the government but was seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s first 10 months in office amid growing concerns about regional security and a cost-of-living crisis . At 52 percent, turnout was up slightly from three years earlier — a trend some analysts attribute to Abe’s death — but the coalition’s victory was expected before he was killed. Blinken, who was in Bali to attend a G20 meeting, said he had flown to Japan because “we are friends and when one friend hurts, the other friend shows up.” Abe, he said, “has done more than anyone else to elevate the relationship between the United States and Japan to new heights.” “We will do everything we can to help our friends bear the burden of this loss,” he added, calling Abe “a man of vision with the ability to realize that vision,” after a meeting with Kishida. A wake will be held for Abe on Monday night at Zojoji, a large Buddhist temple in central Tokyo, followed by a private funeral on Tuesday at the same site. Media reports said a public memorial service would be held at a later date. The suspect in Abe’s murder, Tetsuya Yamagami, said he targeted the politician because he believed he had links to a religious group it accused of bankrupting his mother. Some Japanese media have named the group as the Unification Church, which was founded in South Korea in 1954. Its members are known colloquially as “Moonies” after its founder, Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Police declined to release the group’s name. Yamagami, 41, also admitted to test firing improvised weapons at a facility linked to the group, according to media reports, but the location and nature of the test were not immediately clear. His mother had made a “huge” donation to the group, leaving the family struggling to survive, he told police, adding that he had originally intended to kill the group’s leader in Japan but later targeted Abe. Police found several improvised weapons similar to the one used in Friday’s attack during a search of Yamagami’s apartment in Nara, adding that he appeared to have used online sources as a guide to make them. The election result means Kishida, an Abe protégé, can continue his mentor’s lifelong ambition to revise Japan’s “pacifist” constitution. While building public support for constitutional change will take time, Kishida is expected to use his party’s mandate to double defense spending amid concerns over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and increased Chinese military activity in the East Seas and South China. “Now he has the green light for it,” said Robert Ward at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Kishida said Sunday’s vote was a victory for democracy. “It is important that we were able to put together this election at a time when violence was shaking its foundations,” he said after a moment of silence was observed at LDP headquarters on Sunday night. Abe’s death at the hands of a gunman who was able to roam freely behind his target as he addressed a small group of voters has sparked criticism of his security arrangements. The Nara region’s police chief admitted there were “undeniable” flaws, and on Monday, the government’s top spokesman, Hirokazu Matsuno, said he expected a full investigation into security gaps on the day of the attack.
