The shock caused and the importance of the reactions to the assassination, Friday July 8, of the former Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, testify to the importance acquired by this native of Tokyo, heir to one of the largest political families. of the archipelago and holder of the record for longevity at the head of the Japanese government, where he did everything to impose a very conservative agenda.
His killer, Tetsuya Yamagami, confessed “wanting to kill” Mr. Abe because he was ” unhappy “. He denied acting for political reasons. His motives remain unclear, which accentuates the incomprehension faced with a gesture described as ” barbaric act in the middle of the electoral campaign, which is the basis of democracy, and it is absolutely unforgivable”by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who was Abe’s foreign minister between 2012 and 2017.
Death mowed down the former head of government as he campaigned for the July 10 senatorial elections. Shinzo Abe was giving a speech at a crossroads near Yamato-Saidaiji Station in Nara, western Japan. He was to chain interventions in support of the candidate of his formation, the Liberal Democratic Party (the PLD, in power), a sign of the influence he retained in the Japanese political landscape and of his lasting popularity with members.
“Defender of a multilateral world order »
Reactions to his death came from around the world. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken hailed a “visionary leader”. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said “shocked and saddened beyond words”. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, denounced on Twitter the “cowardly and brutal murder” by Shinzo Abe, “a great democrat and defender of a multilateral world order”.
The former prime minister was born on September 21, 1954 into a powerful political family from the department of Yamaguchi (southwest). His maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was prime minister from 1957 to 1960. His great-uncle, Eisaku Sato, was prime minister from 1964 to 1972. His father Shintaro Abe was a deputy and obtained his first ministerial post in 1974.
Politics, however, does not seem to appeal to Shinzo Abe. As a child, he aspired to become a baseball player or a detective. A graduate in law at the modest private university Seikei, then in political science at the University of South Carolina, in the United States, he began by working for the Japanese steel giant Kobe Steel before becoming, in 1982, the assistant to his father, who then directed Japanese diplomacy and seemed destined to become prime minister. Shintaro died in 1991, at the age of 67, before having achieved this goal. His son must then ensure the continuity of the political dynasty. A task assigned to him by his mother, Yoko, daughter of Nobusuke Kishi, who is counting on him because she considered her husband too soft, even too progressive. Although he volunteered to become a suicide bomber at the end of the war.
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