Japan’s ruling coalition won a comfortable victory yesterday in by-elections to the upper house of parliament, an event overshadowed by the shooting death of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a campaign rally on Friday. The authorities had urged the population to go out and vote to show that the country is not intimidated by violence and defend its democracy.
All surveys and polls indicate that the alliance formed by the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD), which Abe led until his resignation for health reasons in 2020, and the Buddhist Komeito formation took more than half of the votes at stake in these elections, in which 125 of the 248 seats in the chamber were decided. According to the state agency Kyodo, together they obtained at least 63 of those seats yesterday, a figure that state television NHK raised to between 69 and 83 seats.
The LDP was already hoping for a strong showing before Abe, who was the nation’s longest-serving prime minister in modern history, was slain. Even so, it is believed that his death generated a certain current of sympathy for his training, which seems to have influenced the balance in favor of him in some constituencies.
The wide victory of the PLD gives the Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, three years of margin without new electoral appointments to carry out his new economic program. In addition, the partners of the Government and other parties that support the reform of the pacifist Constitution of Japan will enjoy a parliamentary representation of more than two thirds, enough to carry out this controversial initiative aimed at expanding national defense powers, one of the main aspirations of the late Abe.
Meanwhile, the police continue to investigate the motives for the assassination. The main suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, claims that he originally intended to attack the leader of a religious group to which his mother donated money until he went bankrupt, but in the end he chose to kill Abe for his ties to that cult. Although the name of the cult has not been officially revealed, several local media took aim at the Unification Church, a group originally from South Korea famous for its anti-communism.
The arrested would have spent months planning his action. Although he initially armed explosives to carry out the attack, he later built several firearms with the knowledge gained from his three years in the Self-Defense Forces. Last Friday, he used one of those homemade pistols to fire two shots at Abe from close range after circumventing the lax security measures that surrounded him, the object of harsh criticism and that will be subject to review.
During election day, the spontaneous gestures of citizens in memory of the former president continued, among which hundreds of people patiently waited in long queues to leave flowers in the exact place where he was assassinated. This week a funeral is scheduled for the former prime minister and another wake in his memory at the Buddhist temple of Zojoji, in Tokyo, which for the moment only the attendance of his relatives is contemplated.
