Japan votes after Abe slay
TOKYO (AFP) – Japanese voters cast their ballots Sunday in an upper house election, just two days after former prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated while on the campaign trail.
The election, which is expected to see Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party increase its majority, has been overshadowed by the murder.
But Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and other politicians have insisted the shock killing would not halt the democratic process.
”We must never allow violence to suppress speech during elections, which are the foundation of democracy,” Kishida said on Saturday, as he campaigned across the country.
He also took time to pay condolences at Abe’s family home in Tokyo, where the former premier’s body arrived on Saturday afternoon from a hospital in western Japan.
The assassination on Friday morning rattled the nation and sent shockwaves around the world, prompting an outpouring of sympathy even from nations with which the hawkish Abe had sometimes difficult relations, like China and South Korea.
Security at polling stations yesterday remained normal, however, with 79-year-old Takao Sueki saying he was voting with an eye on international instability, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
”Watching the world now, I think every day about how Japan will manage with the situation,” Sueki told AFP.
”This is a democratic country and I despise the use of violence to eliminate someone,” he added when asked about Abe’s murder. ”I strongly believe that if people have disagreements, they should dispute them with dialogue.”
Police have promised a “thorough investigation” into what the head of the Nara regional police called “problems with guarding and safety measures” for Abe.
”I believe it is undeniable that there were problems with the guarding and safety measures for former prime minister Abe,” Tomoaki Onizuka told reporters on Saturday evening.
”In all the years since I became a police officer in 1995... there is no greater remorse, no bigger regret than this,” the tearful police chief added.
Abe’s maternal grandfather, prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, survived a knife attack on July 14, 1960.