Japan’s Shinzo Abe mourned at wake in Tokyo | CBC News

With flags at half-mast, Japan mourned the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe, with his body taken to Zojoji Temple in Tokyo for a wake due to be held Monday evening.

A private funeral is scheduled for Tuesday for Japan’s longest-serving premier, who resigned in 2020.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a brief stopover 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 — at this horrific tragedy,” said Blinken.

“But mostly, I came at the president’s behest because more than allies, we’re friends. And when a friend is hurting, other friends show up.”

Sombre election victory

In elections held on Sunday, Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its ruling coalition partner extended their majority in the upper house of parliament. The results give Kishida the chance to cement his power after taking over for Yoshihide Suga, who lasted only a year in office as the successor to Abe.

With a majority already in place in the lower house, what would have been a celebratory mood at LDP headquarters in usual circumstances turned sombre. A moment of silence for Abe was offered in his memory, and Kishida’s face remained grim as he pinned rosettes next to winning candidates’ names on a board in a symbol of their victory.

The LDP and its junior partner Komeito won 76 of the 125 seats contested in the chamber, up from 69 previously. The LDP alone won 63 seats, up from 55, to win a majority of the contested seats, though it fell short of a simple majority on its own.

With no elections set for another three years, Kishida has gained unusually large breathing space to attempt to implement an ambitious agenda that includes expanding defence spending and revising Japan’s pacifist constitution — a long-held dream of Abe’s before ill health led to his resignation.

Kishida told a news conference that he would take up the difficult problems that Abe was not able to resolve, such as revising the constitution, adding that he hoped there could be discussions on the topic during the next session of parliament.

“We gained strength from voters for stable government of this nation,” said Kishida.

Tetsuya Yamagami, an unemployed 41-year-old, is accused by police of approaching Abe and opening fire during a campaign speech in the western Japan city of Nara on Friday. The attack, captured on video, shocked a nation where gun violence is rare.

The suspect’s mother was a member of the Unification Church but Yamagami himself was not a member, said Tomihiro Tanaka, president of the Japan branch of Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, known as the Unification Church.

Yamagami believed Abe had promoted a religious group to which his mother made a “huge donation,” Kyodo news agency has said, citing investigative sources. Yamagami told police his mother went bankrupt from the donation, the Yomiuri newspaper and other media have reported.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact Yamagami’s mother and could not determine whether she belonged to any other religious organizations.