TOKYO, Japan Japan’s ruling coalition was projected to keep its majority in the upper house of parliament on Sunday, two days after the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a dominant politician and power broker.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), of which Abe was a senior figure, and its junior coalition partner Komeito were on track to win between 69 and 83 of the 125 seats contested in Sunday’s vote, according to an exit poll by public broadcaster NHK.
Official results are expected on Monday.
A vigil is scheduled for Monday night and Abe will be laid to rest on Tuesday.
Abe, Japan’s longest-serving modern leader, was gunned down on Friday during a speech in support of a local candidate in the western city of Nara, a killing the political establishment condemned as an attack on democracy itself.
Analysts had predicted Abe’s assassination would boost the LDP, led by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, an Abe protege.
The party was projected to win 59 to 69 of the upper house seats contested, according the exit poll, up from the 55 it held previously.
Elections for parliament’s less powerful upper house are typically seen as a referendum on the sitting government. Change of government was not at stake, as that is determined by the lower house.
A strong showing at the polls could help Kishida consolidate his rule, giving the former banker from Hiroshima a chance to carry out his goal of boosting military spending.
It might allow him to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution, a dream Abe never achieved.
The exit polls show parties open to revising the pacifist constitution were projected to maintain their two-thirds majority in the upper house. Most voters favor greater military strength, opinion polls show.
GRUDGE
The man arrested for Abe’s killing believed the former Japanese leader was linked to a religious group he blamed for his mother’s financial ruin and spent months planning the attack with a homemade gun, police told local media on Saturday.
Tetsuya Yamagami, an unemployed 41-year-old, was identified by police as the suspect who approached Japan’s longest-serving prime minister from behind and opened fire, an attack that was captured on video and shocked a nation where gun violence is rare.
Wiry and bespectacled with shaggy hair, the suspect was seen stepping into the road behind Abe, who was standing on a riser at an intersection, before unloading two shots from a 40-cm-long (16-inch) weapon wrapped with black tape. He was tackled by police at the scene.
Yamagami was a loner who did not reply when spoken to, neighbors told Reuters. He believed Abe had promoted a religious group that his mother made a “huge donation” to, Kyodo news agency said, citing investigative sources.
He told police his mother went bankrupt from the donation, the Yomiuri newspaper and other media reported.
“My mother got wrapped up in a religious group and I resented it,” Kyodo and others quoted him as telling police. Nara police declined to comment on the details reported by Japanese media of Yamagami’s motive or preparation.
Media have not named the religious group he was reportedly upset with.
Yamagami jury-rigged the weapon from parts bought online, spending months plotting the attack, even attending other Abe campaign events, including one a day earlier some 200 km (miles) away, media said.
He had considered a bomb attack before opting for a gun, according to public broadcaster NHK.
The suspect told police he made guns by wrapping steel pipes together with tape, some of them with three, five or six pipes, with parts he bought online, NHK said.
Police found bullet holes in a sign attached to a campaign van near the site of the shooting and believe they were from Yamagami, police said on Saturday. Videos showed Abe turning toward the attacker after the first shot before crumpling to the ground after the second.
Yamagami lived on the eighth floor of a building of small flats. The ground floor is full of bars where patrons pay to drink and chat with female hostesses. One karaoke bar has gone out of business.
The elevator stops on only three floors, a cost-saving design. Yamagami would have had to get off and walk up a flight of stairs to his flat.
One of his neighbors, a 69-year-old woman who lived a floor below him, saw him three days before Abe’s assassination.
“I said hello but he ignored me. He was just looking down at the ground to the side not wearing a mask. He seemed nervous,” the woman, who gave only her surname Nakayama, told Reuters. “It was like I was invisible. He seemed like something was bothering him.”
