Shinzo Abe, a Prime Minister who had a profound impact on political life in Japan

Europe 1 with AFP 4 p.m., July 8, 2022

Politician respected and appreciated by his peers, the former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe died on Friday.

He was shot dead in Nara, western Japan, while giving an election rally.

Nearly two years after leaving office for health reasons, Shinzo Abe, 67, died in Kashihara Hospital, just hours after the attack. 

The one who has broken longevity records at the head of his country has deeply marked the political life of Japan, resisting many political and financial scandals around him and those close to him.

This nationalist, tinged with pragmatism, was 52 years old when he became head of government for the first time in 2006, the youngest of the post-war period in his country.

He had notably marked the spirits during his second spell in power (2012-2020) with a bold economic recovery policy and intense diplomatic activity, but which left a deep feeling of incompleteness.

Partial successes

In the summer of 2020, when he had become unpopular for his management of the pandemic deemed clumsy by public opinion, he had admitted that he suffered from a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis and had resigned shortly thereafter.

This illness was already one of the reasons for the abrupt end of his first stint in power in 2007.

Shinzo Abe is best known abroad with his economic policy, dubbed "Abenomics", launched from the end of 2012, combining monetary easing, massive fiscal stimulus and structural reforms.

It has recorded certain successes, such as a notable increase in the activity rate of women and seniors, as well as greater recourse to immigration in the face of labor shortages.Pr

However, due to a lack of sufficient structural reforms, Abenomics has produced only partial successes.

The ultimate ambition of this heir to a large family of conservative politicians was to revise the pacifist Japanese Constitution of 1947, written by the American occupiers, and never amended since.

A strong presence on the international scene 

Having built part of his reputation on his firmness vis-à-vis North Korea, Shinzo Abe also advocated a Japan uninhibited from its past: in particular, he refused to bear the burden of repentance for the abuses of the Japanese army in China and the Korean Peninsula in the first half of the 20th century. 

Shinzo Abe, however, refrained from going as Prime Minister to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, a hotbed of Japanese nationalism, since his visit there at the end of 2013 outraged Beijing, Seoul and Washington.

Relations between Tokyo and Seoul have deteriorated against the backdrop of their historical disputes, while those with Beijing, which had warmed up a little at the same time, remain tortuous.

Despite everything, he tried to strengthen Japan's presence on the international scene, for example by taking on the role of mediator between Iran and the United States, promoting multilateralism and multiplying free trade agreements.

Various controversies

Certain laws passed under Shinzo Abe, particularly on the strengthening of the protection of state secrets, the expansion of the missions of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the hardening of the fight against terrorism, have caused controversy in Japan, going so far as to involve large demonstrations, usually rare in the country.

He had also long clung to hopes of keeping the Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2020, which was to be the high point of his final term.

The Tokyo Olympics finally took place a year later, behind closed doors.