Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot during a campaign speech on Friday in western Japan and was airlifted to a hospital but was not breathing and his heart had stopped, officials said. Local fire official Makoto Morimoto said Abe suffered cardiac and pulmonary arrest after being shot and was taken to a prefectural hospital. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters that police arrested an alleged male attacker at the scene. “A barbaric act like this is absolutely inexcusable, regardless of the reasons, and we strongly condemn it,” Matsuno said. Public broadcaster NHK broadcast footage showing Abe collapsed in the street, with several security guards running towards him. He was reportedly shot minutes after he began speaking outside a central train station in western Nara. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who belongs to the same political party as Abe, is flying to Tokyo by helicopter from his own campaign destination of Yamagata in northern Japan. Matsuno said all cabinet ministers should return to Tokyo from their campaign trips. In another video, campaign operatives surrounded him to groom the popular former leader who is still influential in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and heads Seiwakai’s largest faction. Elections for Japan’s Upper House, the least powerful chamber of its parliament, are on Sunday. Abe was giving a speech when people heard gunshots. He was clutching his chest when he collapsed, his shirt stained with blood, but was able to speak before falling unconscious. The attack came as a shock in a country that is among the safest in the world and has some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere. Abe stepped down in 2020 because he said a chronic health problem had resurfaced. Abe has had ulcerative colitis since he was a teenager and said the condition was controlled with treatment. He told reporters at the time that it was “mean” to leave many of his goals unfinished. He talked about his failure to resolve the issue of Japanese abducted years ago by North Korea, a territorial dispute with Russia and a revision of Japan’s war-renouncing constitution. That last goal was a big reason he was such a divisive figure. His ultra-nationalism angered Korea and China, and his push to normalize Japan’s defense posture angered many Japanese. Abe failed to achieve his cherished goal of formally rewriting the US-drafted pacifist constitution due to poor public support. Abe’s supporters said his legacy was a stronger US-Japan relationship meant to boost Japan’s defense capability. But Abe has also made enemies by pushing his defense goals and other contentious issues through parliament, despite strong public opposition. Abe is a blue-blooded politician who was groomed to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi. His political rhetoric often focused on making Japan a “normal” and “beautiful” nation with a stronger military and a greater role in international affairs.
