Shinzo Abe, divisive, powerful former Japan PM, assassinated

TOKYO (AP) — Shinzo Abe, a divisive archconservative who was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister and remained a powerful and influential politician after leaving office, has died after being shot during a campaign speech Friday. He was 67.

Abe was shot just minutes after he started speaking at the political rally in Nara and was pronounced dead hours later at a hospital, medical officials said.

Police arrested the suspected gunman at the scene of the attack, which shocked many in Japan, one of the world’s safest nations with some of the strictest gun control laws. Near the suspect was a double-barreled device that appeared to be a handmade gun.

Abe, a political blueblood who was groomed to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, was perhaps the most polarizing, complex politician in recent Japanese history, angering both liberals at home and World War II victims in Asia with his hawkish push to revamp the military and his revisionist view that Japan was given an unfair verdict by history for its brutal past.

At the same time, he revitalized Japan’s economy, led efforts for the nation to take a stronger role in Asia and served as a rare beacon of political stability before stepping down two years ago for health reasons.

“He’s the most towering political figure in Japan over the past couple of decades,” said Dave Leheny, a political scientist at Waseda University. “He wanted Japan to be respected on the global stage in the way that he felt was deserved. ... He also wanted Japan to not have to keep apologizing for World War II.”

Japan had “a postwar track record of economic success, peace and global cooperation that he felt other countries should pay more attention to, and that Japanese should be proud of,” Leheny said.

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