Japan says its final goodbye to slain former leader Shinzo Abe

Japan bid its final goodbye to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday at a family funeral held at a temple days after his assassination shocked the nation.

Abe, the country's longest-serving prime minister, who remained influential even after he stepped down two years ago, was gunned down Friday during a campaign speech in the western city of Nara.

Hundreds of people, some in dark formal suits, filled pedestrian areas outside the Zojoji temple in downtown Tokyo to bid farewell to Abe, 67, whose nationalistic views drove the governing party's ultra-conservative policies.

Mourners took photos, and some called out, “Abe-san!” as the cortege, including a hearse carrying his body, accompanied by Akie Abe, his widow, slowly drove by the packed crowd.

About 1,000 people, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and senior party leaders as well as foreign officials, attended the funeral at the temple.

At the ceremony, Akie Abe said her husband's death still seemed unreal. “I believe there were many things he left unfinished as a politician. But he had planted many seeds, and I'm sure they will sprout,” she was quoted as by Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

Abe's longtime ally and mentor, Finance Minister Taro Aso, described Abe as "the most talented politician in postwar Japan, who raised Japan's international profile.” Aso, 81, said he was supposed to be the one to ask Abe to make a condolence speech for him.

The hearse made a tour of Tokyo's main political headquarters of Nagata-cho, where Abe spent more than three decades since he was first elected in 1991. It then drove slowly by the headquarters of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, where senior lawmakers in dark suits stood outside and prayed, before heading to the prime minister's office, where Abe served a total of nearly a decade.

Kishida and his Cabinet members pressed their hands before their chest as they prayed and bowed to Abe's body before the hearse headed to a crematorium.

On Sunday, two days after Abe's death, the ruling LDP and its coalition partner won a landslide victory in the upper house, the less powerful chamber of Japan's bicameral parliament.

That could allow Kishida to govern uninterrupted until a scheduled election in 2025, but the loss of Abe also opened up a period of uncertainly for his party. Experts say a power struggle within the party faction that Abe led is certain and could affect Kishida's grip on power.

Kishida has stressed the importance of party unity after Abe's death.

Abe’s shooting shook a nation known as one of the world's safest, with some of its strictest gun laws. Gun violence in Japan is extremely rare.

The alleged gunman, Tetsyua Yamagami, was arrested on the spot Friday and is being detained at a local prosecutors’ office for further investigation. They can detain him for up to three weeks while deciding whether to press charges.

Police said Yamagami cited a rumored link between Abe and an organization that Yamagami hated as the motive for the killing. Media reports said that the organization was the Unification Church and that Yamagami disliked it because donations by his mother to the religious group had bankrupted his family.

The head of the Japanese branch of the South Korean-based church, known for its anti-Communist stance and mass weddings, confirmed Monday that Yamagami's mother was a member. He said Abe was not, but may have spoken at groups affiliated with the church.

On Tuesday, public security chief Satoshi Ninoyu told reporters that he had instructed the National Police Agency to investigate security for political and business leaders.

Abe, the grandson of a previous prime minister, became Japan's youngest premier in 2006, at age 52. He left after a year in office because of health reasons but returned to power in 2012.

He vowed to revitalize the nation and get its economy out of its deflationary doldrums with his “Abenomics” formula, which combines fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms.

His long-cherished goals, held by other ultra-conservatives, were to revise Japan's pacifist constitution, which was drafted by the United States after World War II, and to transform Japan's Self Defense Force into a full-fledged military.

Abe became Japan's longest-serving leader before leaving office in 2020, citing a recurrence of the ulcerative colitis he'd had since he was a teenager.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.