TOKYO, July 8 (Reuters) – Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was taken to hospital on Friday after he was shot in the back by what appeared to be a man with a rifle while giving a speech in the western city of Nara, public broadcaster NHK said. .
Abe, 67, appeared to be in cardiac arrest, the network and Kyodo news agency reported. Gunshots were heard and a white plume of smoke was seen as Abe gave a campaign speech outside a train station, NHK said.
An NHK reporter at the scene said they heard two consecutive bangs during Abe’s speech.
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The Chief Cabinet Secretary will brief the media at 04:00 GMT.
Abe served two terms as prime minister to become Japan’s longest-serving prime minister before stepping down in 2020, citing ill health.
But he maintained a dominant presence over the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), controlling one of its main factions.
His protégé, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, faces an upper house election on Sunday in which analysts say he hopes to step out of Abe’s shadow and determine his premiership.
Abe is best known for his signature “Abenomics” policy, involving bold monetary easing and fiscal spending.
He also increased defense spending after years of declines and expanded the military’s ability to project power abroad.
In a historic change, in 2014 his government reworked the post-war, pacifist constitution to allow troops to fight abroad for the first time since World War II.
The following year, legislation ended the ban on exercising the right of collective self-defense or defending a friendly country under attack.
However, Abe fell short of his long-held goal of revising the US-drafted constitution by writing the Self-Defense Forces, as Japan’s military is known, into the pacifist Article 9.
He was instrumental in winning the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo by maintaining his desire to preside over the games, which were postponed by a year to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abe first took office in 2006 as Japan’s youngest prime minister since World War II. After a year plagued by political scandals, voter outrage over lost pension records and electoral setbacks for his ruling party, Abe quit, citing ill health.
He became Prime Minister again in 2012.
Abe comes from a wealthy political family, including a foreign minister father and an uncle who was prime minister.
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Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim; Written by Robert Birsell; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and William Mallard
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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