Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has died after he was shot twice from the back while giving a campaign speech for another candidate in the city of Nara in western Japan, NPR reports. A 41-year-old male suspect is in custody. Abe, 67, was shot about noon Friday local time at a campaign rally for another candidate in the city of Nara in western Japan. Eyewitnesses told Japanese television NHK network that Abe was shot twice from behind while giving a speech for the candidate and that the alleged gunman did not run or resist arrest.
Abe was Japan's longest-serving prime minister, in office from 2006-07 and again from 2012 to 2020.
Japan's elections are Sunday.
(FRI 7/8/22)
•••
(THU 7/7/22)
Boris Johnson Pulls a Trump...
Boris Johnson has resigned as leader of his Conservative party but will stay on as Britain’s prime minister until a successor can be chosen. The Guardian lists eight party members by name and “many others” likely to stand to become prime minister.
“It’s clearly the will of the parliamentary Conservative party,” Johnson said in his announcement Thursday. "Them's the breaks."
More than 50 ministers and government aides have resigned in recent days in a rolling walkout, including the health secretary, Sajid Javid, and the chancellor, Rishi Sunak.
Senior Conservative ministers of parliament pushed back on Johnson’s plan to remain until replaced, suggesting an interim leader such as Dominic Raab. Johnson replaced Theresa May as leader in 2019, and that December his party gained an 80-seat majority, giving him the mandate to manage “Brexit” from the European Union.
The UK parliament’s new chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, had urged Johnson to quit as anger grew over Johnson’s protection of Conservative whip Chris Pincher, accused of sexual assault, and other scandals, including numerous parties attended by leadership during pandemic lockdowns.
Speaking to a crowd of supporters in front of 10 Downing Street, Johnson said he was “sad to be giving up the best job in the world,” and called the resulting change in Conservative leadership “eccentric” at this time, per The Guardian. “I regret not to have been successful in those arguments.”
Note: A “growing number” of Tory MPs are saying Johnson must leave immediately, the BBC reports. Now. And former prime minister and fellow Tory John Major has written to the chairman of the Conservatives’ 1922 Committee to warn it is “unwise” for Johnson to remain in office while his successor is being chosen. Unlike Donald J. Trump and his many fellow Republicans who supported his Big Lie after losing re-election, Boris Johnson’s own party overwhelmingly will see to it that he cannot try to retain his leadership in Great Britain.
--Todd Lassa