Abe became Japan’s longest-serving prime minister in November 2019, but after the summer of 2020 support for him waned due to his handling of the pandemic
THE Shinzo AbeJapan’s longest-serving prime minister, who attempted to pull the economy out of chronic deflation with his bold policies, known as “Abenomics”to bolster the military and counter China’s rising power, died today at the age of 67.
Abe, who resigned in 2020, accepted today assault with a weapon during a campaign speech and succumbed to his injuries after 5.5 hours. An attack which his protégé and acting prime minister Fumio Kishida called “absolutely inexcusable”.
New video shows attempted assassination on former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
NOTE: Video not graphic, but viewer discretion is advised pic.twitter.com/7zsm4WSWrZ
— BNO News (@BNONews) July 8, 2022
From a member of parliament he first became prime minister in 2006 and remained in office for just a year, but then ran for prime minister again — a rarity for the country — in 2012 on a pledge to revive the stagnant economy, loosen the boundaries of the pacifist postwar Constitution and restore traditional values.
He was instrumental in taking over the hosting of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, long harboring a desire to preside over the Games. He even appeared as the Nintendo video game character Super Mario when Tokyo took over from Rio to host the Games in 2016.
Abe is done Japan’s longest-serving prime minister in office in November 2019, but after the summer of 2020 support for him declined due to his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also a series of scandals, among which the arrest of the former Minister of Justice.
Breaking: Video shows the scene after former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was shot in Nara, Japan. pic.twitter.com/htrRxLGNvg
— Andy Ngo 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) July 8, 2022
He resigned in September of that year without achieving his long-held goals of revising the Constitution or presiding over the Games, an event that was moved to 2021 because of the pandemic.
But he remained a dominant figure in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, controlling one of its key factions.
When he was killed he was campaigning for the upper house elections scheduled for Sunday.
WATCH: Bystanders rush to help former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after he is shotpic.twitter.com/vgk7fn323p
— BNO News (@BNONews) July 8, 2022
THE “ABENOMICS”
Abe first took office as prime minister in 2006 and was the country’s youngest prime minister since World War II. After a year marked by political scandals, voter anger over lost pension records and an election defeat by his ruling party, Abe resigned, citing health problems.
“What worries me most now is that because of my resignation, the conservative ideals that the Abe government cultivated will be extinguished,” he wrote in Bungei Shunju magazine.
“From now on, I want to sacrifice myself as a parliamentarian who will make true conservatism take root in Japan,” he noted.
Five years after his resignation, which he attributed to an intestinal ailment, ulcerative colitis, Abe led his conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which had lost it in 2009, to power.
He then presented his three-pronged strategy, “Abenomics”, to fight deflation and boost economic growth with easy monetary policy and fiscal spending combined with structural reform to deal with a rapidly aging and shrinking population. .
Deflation has proved persistent, however, and Abe’s growth strategy has been hit in 2019 by a consumption tax hike and a Sino-US trade war. The next year the coronavirus pandemic triggered the worst recession Japan’s economy has ever suffered.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Abe closed Japan’s borders and imposed a state of emergency on the country, telling citizens to stay indoors and closing shops.
His critics initially called Abe’s management clumsy and later accused him of a lack of leadership.
When he resigned, citing the same health problem, the country’s death rate from COVID-19 was much lower than in many other developed countries.
DYNASTY
Abe was the scion of a wealthy political family, which includes a foreign minister father and a brother of his grandfather who had been an ex-prime minister.
But when it comes to many policies, his grandfather, the late Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, seems to have had the most value.
Kishi was a government minister during the war and had been imprisoned but never tried as a war criminal after World War II.
He served as prime minister from 1957 to 1960 and resigned amid popular outcry over the renegotiation of a US-Japan security agreement.
Kishi tried unsuccessfully to revise Japan’s 1947 constitution with the U.S. to make the country an equal security partner with the U.S. and to adopt more assertive diplomacy — issues that were also central to Abe’s political agenda. .
Abe has boosted defense spending and reached out to other Asian states to counter China’s growing power.
The basis of his political agenda was to escape the postwar regime, as he called it, a legacy of American occupation that, conservatives say, is robbing Japan of its national pride.
Reforming education to restore traditional morals was another goal of his.
Abe also took a less apologetic stance on Japan’s actions during World War II, saying future generations should stop apologizing for past mistakes.
HARD ATTITUDE
He was first elected to parliament in 1993 after the death of his father and gained a reputation in the country for taking a tough stance toward unpredictable neighbor North Korea in a dispute over Japanese citizens abducted by Pyongyang decades ago.
Although Abe has also sought to improve ties with China and South Korea, where bitter war memories remain, he angered both neighbors in 2013 when he visited the Yasukuni memorial, which is considered by those two countries symbol of Japan’s militaristic past.
In the following years, he avoided visiting the monument in person and chose to send a wreath.
Abe forged close ties with US President Donald Trump, with whom he played golf, had frequent phone calls and meetings.
He was re-elected president of his party for a third consecutive three-year term in 2018 after a change in the party’s constitution, and until the coronavirus emerged, some within the party were considering another change in the constitution to allow Abe to serve a fourth term.
RES-EMP
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