Following Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, delegations from around the world are now expected in Tokyo to bid farewell to the former prime minister assassinated in July on September 27. But polls show that more than 60% of the Japanese population is against the solemn celebrations and even the main opposition party has announced that it will not participate in them.
Tokyo () – Almost ten days after the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, broadcast and followed around the world, another date is approaching for the agendas of foreign ministries and embassies. Indeed, next week, on September 27, a state funeral will be held in Tokyo for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, assassinated in an attack two months ago. It is the second time since the war that a former prime minister has been granted such treatment. However, the atmosphere around the Nippon Budokan promises to be very different from what was seen yesterday in Westminster Abbey.
For a few weeks, the decision to award this honor to Abe has been the center of growing controversy that has divided public opinion, drawing multiple criticisms from both civil society and opposition parties. Indeed, opposition to the state funeral is spreading more and more in the country. If in July, when the decision was made, 43% of the population was in favor of a public funeral for the former prime minister, today the percentage has dropped to 33%, while those who are against practically double that number and reach 60%.
Last month they organized protests in Tokyo to request that the funeral be cancelled. The reasons the protesters shouted they covered multiple aspects of the controversial political life of the former prime minister. Some groups identified with opposition to Abe’s attempts to amend the country’s dovish constitution, while others felt that being involved in corruption scandals did not make him worthy of a state funeral. Still others expressed doubts about the public spending burden at a time of economic hardship like the present, and some were instead questioning the decision to hold the funeral for the simple reason that it had been made despite the opposition of most Japanese. In early September they also appeared at the cabinet office petitions against state funeral signed by some 400,000 citizens.
A part of the population, in fact, considers that the decision to organize the state funeral (which according to many would even be illegal because it falls outside the jurisdiction of the government) is undue pressure to show pain for a leader who polarized the country.
These circumstances are also having political consequences. Although the current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has tried to explain in Parliament and to the citizens what are the reasons for organizing a state funeral, in the polls the index of disapproval of his decisions has already exceeded that of approval. In this context, the main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party, decided to announce that its leaders They will not attend the funeral. But in Japan’s divided opposition, where there are different sensitivities, not everyone thinks the same, and other parties have decided to attend Abe’s funeral.
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