After Abe Assassination, Japan’s Kishida Must Forge His Own Path
Leading a wounded nation, the prime minister needs to flesh out his own vision for security and economic policy.
Kishida has a mandate to lead.
Photographer: Du Xiaoyi/Getty Images
Sympathy and outrage over last Friday’s shocking assassination of Shinzo Abe obviously contributed to the sweeping victory of his Liberal Democratic Party in upper-house elections over the weekend. However much he owes the former prime minister, though, Japan’s current leader, Fumio Kishida, must now find his own path.
An unemployed 41-year-old veteran of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force confessed to targeting Abe for his supposed ties to an unspecified religious group. He appears to have used a handmade firearm, stunning a nation unaccustomed to gun violence. Abe himself was a towering figure — modern Japan’s longest-serving leader, credited with shaking the country out of its post-bubble doldrums and returning it to a position of active leadership in Asia. The repercussions of his death will reverberate well beyond Sunday’s vote, in which the LDP and its coalition partner claimed at least 76 out of 125 contested seats.