Polls opened on Sunday in Japan’s upper house elections, just two days after former prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated while on the campaign trail.
The election, which is expected to see Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party increase its majority, has been overshadowed by the murder.
But prime minister Fumio Kishida and other politicians have insisted the shock killing would not halt the democratic process.
‘We must never allow violence to suppress speech during elections, which are the foundation of democracy,’ he said Saturday, as he campaigned across the country.
But he also took time to pay condolences at Abe’s family home in Tokyo, where the former premier’s body arrived on Saturday afternoon from a hospital in western Japan.
