Japan’s ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Shot Dead.
Shinzo Abe was a politician from Japan who held the offices of Prime Minister of Japan from 2006 to 2007 and President of the Liberal Democratic Party from 2012 to 2020. He served as prime minister of Japan for the longest period.
In September 2005, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appointed him Chief Cabinet Secretary. In September 2006, he succeeded him as Prime Minister and LDP President. He was then approved as prime minister by a special session of the National Diet, becoming the first prime minister born after World War II and the youngest in Japan since the war.
Abe left his position as prime minister shortly after his party was defeated in the House of Councillors election of that year due to ulcerative colitis-related medical issues. He was succeeded by Yasuo Fukuda, who was the first of five prime ministers to leave office before serving for more than 16 months.
He advocated amending Article 9 of the pacifist Japanese constitution to allow Japan to maintain military forces. He was regarded as a hardliner when it came to Japanese defence policy. In 2015, he proposed, pushed for, and successfully passed security reform legislation to enable Japan to exercise collective security. The legislation’s passage was contentious and met with sizable protests.
The Abenomics economic policies, which pursued monetary easing, fiscal stimulus, and structural changes, made Abe’s premiership well-known abroad. On July 8, 2022, Abe was shot and killed while giving a speech for a political cause in Nara.
