The country’s leaders had urged the public to turn out and vote on Sunday, denouncing the killing as an attack on democracy. “We must absolutely defend free and fair elections, which are the basis of democracy,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday, adding that the party would “continue our election campaign as planned with the firm belief that we will not relent never to violence.” The counting of votes has now been completed, but the official results have not yet been released by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. While the upper house is the less powerful of Japan’s two houses of parliament, the victory solidifies Kishida’s political base and could help him move forward with key policy issues, including a possible revision of Japan’s pacifist constitution — a cause that Abe had advocated during his nearly nine years in office and one that would require a two-thirds majority of both houses of parliament, followed by a popular referendum. Hours after the polls closed on Sunday, Kishida told NHK: “The election was compromised by violence, but we have to complete it. Now we have completed it, it is very important — to move forward, we must continue to work hard to protect democracy”.

The suspect behind the murder

The election results come as the investigation continues for the suspect behind Abe’s murder, 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, who was arrested at the scene moments after the shooting. Police say he is suspected of murder, but have not been formally charged. Yamagami said he held a grudge against a particular group he believed Abe had ties to and with which his mother had been involved, according to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo news agency, citing police. Nara police said on Monday that Yamagami may have carried out a test fire in the early hours of Thursday at the building of “a certain group” in Nara Prefecture, using the improvised weapon he later killed Abe with. Investigators said a vehicle believed to be Yamagami’s car was seen on security cameras near where Thursday’s test shot allegedly took place. Police declined to name the group and security plans have not been released. CNN could not independently confirm which group the suspect was referring to. The suspect’s mother was a member of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, popularly known as the Unification Church, Tomihiro Tanaka, president of the church’s Japan office, said in a statement on Monday.
The suspect was never a member of the church, while his mother was a member who attended church events about once a month, the statement said. Tanaka added that the organization would cooperate with investigators if asked. Yamagami told police he watched YouTube videos to help him build his weapons, NHK reported Monday, citing investigators. He practiced shooting the weapons in the mountains days before the killing, and police found wooden boards with bullet holes in the suspect’s vehicle, according to NHK. Photos from the scene Friday show what appeared to be a gun with two cylindrical metal barrels wrapped in black tape. Yamagami also told investigators that he originally intended to kill Abe using explosives at an event in Okayama Prefecture, a three-hour drive from Nara, NHK reported — but reportedly changed his plan because of possible difficulties attending the event . As a national leader, Abe became associated with many groups, organizations and causes, as is customary in any democracy. It is unclear whether Abe was connected to any group the suspect was talking about. When asked if the suspect was working alone or with anyone else, police said they were investigating all possibilities.

A nation in mourning

The shootings have shocked Japan, a country long considered one of the safest in the world. A private wake will be held in Tokyo on Monday and a funeral on Tuesday, according to Abe’s office. The office added that they will hold a ceremony to mourn him, although the time and location have yet to be decided. The office has set up an altar for the public to place flowers at its office in Yamaguchi and will add an incense area tomorrow, it said. In the days since Abe’s death, mourners in Nara have gathered and placed flowers at a makeshift memorial near where he was assassinated. Abe was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, serving from 2006 to 2007, then again from 2012 to 2020, when he stepped down for health reasons. But even after his resignation, Abe remained a major figure in the country’s political landscape and continued to campaign for the LDP. “He’s been such a towering figure in Japanese politics for so long … I think everyone expected that for years to come he would continue to hold enormous power,” said Tobias Harris, senior fellow for Asia at the Center for American Progress. “So the reality that he is not there to exercise that power, that he is gone and that he has left a power vacuum within the LDP is … a much bigger shock, even than the fact of his death to the general public.” Messages of mourning and remembrance have flooded in from world leaders past and present, many of whom worked with Abe — a highly influential figure in the Asia-Pacific region who defined politics for a generation — during his tenure in charge. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Tokyo on Monday, meeting with Kishida to honor and express his condolences to the Japanese people. “I’m here because the United States and Japan are more than allies; we’re friends. And when one friend hurts, the other shows up,” Blinken told reporters Monday. He added that Abe was “a visionary who took relations with the US to new heights.” Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and several senior government officials also visited Japan’s de facto embassy in Taipei on Monday to pay their respects to Abe and convey their “heartfelt condolences” to Abe’s family. Taiwan also flies flags at half-staff to mark Abe’s contributions to the island.