2024 POLLS: Police on High Alert in 1st Big Race after Abe Shooting

   Tokyo, Oct. 15 (Jiji Press)--Japanese police are on unprecedented high alert over providing security to important figures ahead of the general election on Oct. 27, the first major national election since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was fatally shot.
   Authorities often face difficulty providing protection to key figures in elections, such as the upcoming race for the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Japan's parliament, due to being unable to spend enough time on drawing up protection plans and securing personnel. The schedules and locations of speeches by figures such as the prime minister are often decided at the last minute.
   Japan's National Police Agency drastically reviewed its protection protocols after Abe was shot while delivering a stump speech for a candidate of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party during the campaigning for an election of the House of Councillors, the upper parliament chamber, in July 2022. The agency introduced a system of prior screenings for security plans, which had previously been left to prefectural police.
   Advance screenings by NPA and prefectural police officials of possible host sites for stump speeches also began.
   But the specifics of protection plans differ even if the locations are the same, depending on the figure subject to security and the timing of events.

(2024/10/15-21:00)

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