With flags at half-mast, Japan on Monday dawned mourning the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe, even as the ruling party he was a part of secured an electoral victory that gives the current prime minister a chance. minister Fumio Kishida to cement his own power.
Mourners, including US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, entered a Tokyo temple for a private wake for Abe on Monday night local time, three days after he was killed on Monday. shots at an election rally.
A private funeral is scheduled for Tuesday (12).
“There is a deep sense of sadness for his loss,” Yellen told reporters outside the temple.
The suspect, identified by police as 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, believes Abe promoted a religious group to which his mother made a “large donation”, Kyodo news agency said, citing investigative sources.
The Unification Church, a controversial group known for its mass marriages and devoted following sometimes derisively called “Moonies”, said on Monday that the suspect’s mother was one of its members.
Neither Abe nor Yamagami were members of the church, said Tomihiro Tanaka, president of the church’s Japanese branch, officially called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.
Abe was also not a church counselor, Tanaka said, adding that he would cooperate with the police if asked to do so.
Reuters was unable to immediately contact Yamagami’s mother and was unable to determine whether she belonged to other religious organizations.
dark victory
In elections held on Sunday, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its governing coalition partner, the Komeito party, increased their majority in the upper house of parliament.
With the majority already in place in the Lower House, what would have been a celebratory mood at LDP headquarters under normal circumstances has turned somber.
A moment of silence for Abe was offered in his memory, and Kishida’s face remained grim as he pinned rosettes next to the names of the winning candidates in a frame in a symbol of his victory.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with 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 – connected people feel – in this horrible tragedy,” said Blinken.
“But mainly, I came at the behest of the president because more than allies, we are friends. And when one friend is suffering, other friends show up.”
Kishida, Yellen and US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel were among hundreds of people who attended Monday’s wake at Tokyo’s Zojoji temple where the former prime minister’s body lay. .
A line of black sedans, including several with diplomatic plates, arrived at the scene, with some wiping away tears as they lined up under the steps leading up to the temple in the stifling heat.
The LDP and its coalition partner Komeito won 76 of the 125 contested seats in the House, up from 69 they previously held.
The LDP alone won 63 seats, up from the 55 it already had, to win the most seats, although it fell short of a simple majority on its own.
With no elections scheduled for the next three years, Kishida has gained extraordinarily large space to try to implement an ambitious agenda that includes expanding defense spending and revising Japan’s pacifist Constitution – a long-held dream of Abe’s before health problems led to your resignation.
Abe led the biggest current within the LDP, and analysts said his death could lead to potential turmoil within the party that could challenge Kishida’s control.
Kishida told a news conference that he will address difficult problems that Abe has been unable to resolve, such as revising the Constitution, adding that he hopes there will be discussions on the matter during the next session of Parliament.
“We gained strength from voters for a stable government of this nation,” Kishida told a news conference.
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
