Japan's ruling party projected to win vote marred by Abe assassination
Japan's ruling coalition is projected to maintain its majority in the upper house of parliament as the country is reeling from the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the longest-serving leader in the modern Japanese history.
According to an exit poll by public broadcaster NHK, 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 up for grabs in Sunday's vote.
The exit poll said the party was projected to win 59 to 69 of the upper house seats contested, up from the 55 it previously held. Reaching 69 seats would give the LDP a majority on its own, a threshold seen as a stretch before Abe's killing.
"Former Prime Minister Abe, who came to support me, was shot in an act of terrorism in the midst of our election campaign," LDP candidate Kei Sato said after NHK projected he would win his seat in Nara region.
"But we continued our campaign in the belief that we must not cave into terrorism or fear it - we must overcome it. I hope to travel to Tokyo tomorrow to tell former Prime Minister Abe himself of this victory," he added.
A high turnout and strong showing at the polls could help Kishida consolidate his rule, providing the former banker with a chance to achieve his goal of boosting military spending. It might also allow him to revise Japan's pacifist constitution, a dream Abe never achieved.
Abe was delivering a stump speech near a train station in the western city of Nara on Friday when he was shot by an assailant. Japanese media said a man opened fire on the 67-year-old from behind with an apparently homemade gun as he spoke to a crowd.
NHK quoted the suspect, identified as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, as telling police he was dissatisfied with Abe and wanted to kill him.
Yamagami has been quoted as saying that he had no political motivation for the murder, and simply held a grudge against the premier due to his family's financial problems which were somehow linked to an unspecified organization affiliated with Abe.
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