Tokyo — Japan’s parliamentary election candidates from the rally in the last few hours of the campaign, hoping to appeal to voters the day after Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, was assassinated. I hurried to the rally. ..
Prime Minister Abe was shot dead during an election campaign on a candidate for the House of Councilors on Friday.
But on Saturday, it seemed to be a political business as usual. A white van with a big picture of a politician and a speaker ringing their name ran through the street. The candidate collided with a supporter with a fist and took a selfie.
From behind roving vans, from street corners and train station entrances, candidates from many political parties in the country sought to market voters with their different visions of Japan’s future. They campaigned as if they agreed to at least one thing. That is, the violence of the previous day should not be allowed to undermine the national elections.
The campaign, which was scheduled to end on Saturday night, could end early as the country wrestled with the death of one of the most powerful and influential politicians in the hours immediately following Prime Minister Abe’s shooting in Nara. There seemed to be.
However, on Friday evening, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sent a brief compliment to Prime Minister Abe, announcing that he would continue the campaign on behalf of the LDP, saying he would otherwise succumb to violence.
He traveled to two prefectures to assist party candidates as security was strengthened on Saturday. While speaking to voters about the death of Prime Minister Abe, he focused primarily on election issues, such as the resurgence of the Japanese economy and the response to rising prices.
For the opposition, the political calculation of the post-assassination campaign was more complicated. As a key figure in the Conservative Liberal Democratic Party, Mr Abe was often the Liberal Democratic Party’s dignitary.
Taku Yamazoe, a 37-year-old Japanese Communist Party member who is aiming for a second term in the trendy Shibuya district of Tokyo, has accused Prime Minister Abe of killing him.
“We do not tolerate the silence of free speech,” he told his supporters. “Violence is not democracy.”
However, supporters of opposition candidates said they were worried that the shooting would lead to a wave of sympathy votes for the ruling party, already deteriorating the odds of a small election.
Hundreds of people gathered in Tokyo’s fashionable Ginza district to support Akiko Ikuina, a former pop idol who ran for the Liberal Democratic Party.
It was her last election suspension and Mr Abe was scheduled to attend.
Ikuna, 54, who stood on the roof of the van, held back tears by calling on supporters to vote on Sunday to honor the legacy of the former Prime Minister. She “needs to help realize Prime Minister Abe’s vision for our country.”
