15 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, has resumed electoral campaign events this Saturday after the incident this morning with the launch of an alleged smoke bomb that unleashed an emergency situation during an event in the center-west of the country.
A 24-year-old man is under arrest on suspicion of throwing an object resembling a smoke bomb during the run-up to a Kishida rally in Wakayama prefecture, slightly injuring a police officer, according to the official Japanese news agency. Kyodo.
Kishida was evacuated unharmed from the site and then resumed his speaking schedule for the day after an event in the shadow of the assassination last year, ahead of the country’s upper house legislative elections, of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The country, it should be remembered, will hold five by-elections next weekend, including in the electoral district that was left vacant by Abe’s death, as the Bloomberg agency recalls.
“Now we are holding elections, which are the most important thing for our country,” Kishida said in a speech broadcast by NHK after the incident, “and with the help of the people I want to carry on with these important elections until the end.”
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno explained that the police were investigating the motive and background of the alleged perpetrator, before stressing that the Japanese government will guarantee without any doubt the safety of those attending the G7 summit that It will start on May 19.
Government and opposition politicians condemned the incident. Hiroshi Moriyama, of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, has denounced what happened to the Japanese public channel NHK as “an unforgivable act of violence” that threatens “the very foundation of democracy.”
