Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe died on July 8 after being shot while campaigning for a parliamentary election. He was shot while making a speech in the Nara Prefecture.
He was taken to a nearby hospital immediately and airlifted to a larger medical facility but died of excessive bleeding.
Abe's death was a shock to the Japanese as violence is rare and only a handful of people own guns.
Abe, Japan's longest-serving prime minister was born to lead the country. His maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was prime minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960 and survived an assassination attempt in the final days of his tenure. In 1960, after massive protests broke out after Japan signed a security deal with the US Kishi stepped down. Kishi was stabbed six times in the thigh as he left his residence to attend a welcome party for his successor. A profusely bleeding Kishi was rushed to the hospital, where he received 30 stitches. Ruling LDP's (Liberal Democratic Party) Hayato Ikeda succeeded Kishi.
Kishi graduated from the Tokyo Imperial law department in 1920 and began a civil service career soon after. In 1936, as a vice minister of the industrial department in the Manchukuo government, he helped promote industrialization of Japanese-occupied Manchuria and China. In 1940, as vice-minister of commerce and industry, Kishi contributed to wartime economic organization. He resigned soon but returned to the government in 1941 as commerce and industry minister in the Cabinet of Tojo Hideki.
Kishi served as Hideki's vice minister but opposed the latter's policy of continuing the war at all costs. Kishi's opposition eventually led to the fall of Hideki's government in 1944. Kishi was imprisoned in 1945 by the Allied Occupation authorities, he was released in 1948 without trial. He then rebranded himself as a businessman. Kishi in 1955 played a pivotal role to merge several factions to form the Liberal Democratic Party. In 1956, Kishi became foreign minister in the Cabinet of Ishibashi Tanzan. In February 1957, when Tanzan fell ill, Kishi succeeded him as prime minister.
Shinzo Abe's father Shintaro Abe was an influential leader in the LDP and served as a foreign minister from 1982 to 1986. From 1981 to 1982, he served as Minister of International Trade and Industry in the cabinet of the then prime minister Zenko Suzuki. Abe started as a kamikaze pilot-- he enrolled at a naval aviation school in 1944 soon after he graduated high school.
Abe graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo in 1949. he then worked as a political reporter for Mainichi Shimbun, a Japanese daily. He began his political career in 1957 when he started working as a legislative aide to the then-prime minister Nobusuke Kishi. In 1958, he won a seat in the House of Representatives.
