Shinzo Abe’s party sweeps to election victory in Japan days after his assassination: NHK

Abe, 67, was shot on Friday in the city of Nara while delivering a speech in support of candidates from his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in a killing that has stunned a nation with one of the world’s lowest rates of gun crime.The country’s leaders had urged the public to turn out and vote on Sunday, denouncing the killing as an attack on democracy.Abe was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, having held office from 2006 to 2007, then again from 2012 to 2020, when he stepped down citing health reasons. But even after his resignation, Abe remained an influential figure in the country’s political landscape and continued to campaign for the LDP.”He was such a towering figure in Japanese politics for so long … I think everyone expected that for years to come he will continue to wield tremendous power,” said Tobias Harris, senior fellow for Asia at the Center for American Progress. “So the reality that he’s not there wielding that power, that he’s gone and that he’s left a power vacuum within the LDP is … a much bigger shock, even than just the fact of his death for the public at large.” Messages of mourning and remembrance have flooded in from world leaders past and present, many of whom worked with Abe — a highly influential figure throughout the Asia-Pacific region who defined politics for a generation — during his terms in power.US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Tokyo on Monday, meeting Kishida to pay respects and give his condolences to the Japanese people.”I’m here because the United States and Japan are more than allies; we are friends. And when one friend is hurting, the other friend shows up,” Blinken told reporters on Monday. He added that Abe was “a visionary who took relations with the US to new heights.”Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and several senior government officials also visited Japan’s de facto embassy in Taipei on Monday to pay tribute to Abe and to convey her “deepest condolences” to the Abe family. Taiwan is also flying flags at half-staff to mark Abe’s contributions to the island.