What we know about the Abe murder

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: What we know about the Abe murder

Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, July 12th, and this is your FT News Briefing.

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We’ll look at who the frontrunners are to replace UK prime minister Boris Johnson. More details have emerged surrounding the person accused of killing Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe. Plus, Sri Lanka is mired in economic crisis and political chaos.

Marwaan Macan-Markar
It has basically, I feel, destroyed one generation or if not two. And that is the saddest part.

Marc Filippino
I’m Marc Filippino and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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Britain’s conservatives are looking for someone to replace Boris Johnson. Eleven candidates have announced plans to join the contest to be the next prime minister. Tomorrow, Tory lawmakers plan to nominate two of them. I’m joined now by the FT’s Whitehall editor, Sebastian Payne, to talk about who MPs are liking right now. So Seb, who’s the front runner? Is there one at this point?

Sebastian Payne
The first favourite is clearly Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor. He got out there very early last Friday and he’s been building up momentum ever since then, getting the biggest number of MPs backing him. He’s been the bookmakers’ favourite, but the second place is still very much in contention at the moment. It feels like that could be the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, who formally launched her campaign on Monday and is probably speaking to the right of the Conservative party. But it’s still very volatile. There are many other people in contention. It could be that Penny Mordaunt, the former trade minister, she slides into second place, or it could also be and the attorney-general, Suella Braverman, who is very much appealing to that wing of the party. But at this stage, it feels like we could end up with a Sunak versus Truss head off.

Marc Filippino
So what issues are gonna shape the race, Seb? What are you keeping an eye on?

Sebastian Payne
I think in the general architecture of what matters in this race, tax and spend is becoming the defining issue. And you would expect that given the UK is in something of an economic crisis at the moment and there is of course a cost of living crisis with food, fuel, everything soaring through the roof. And the sense the government hasn’t really got a grip on the situation. So I’m looking at what the economic plans are and really how realistic they are because all these tax cuts might sound good, but they’ve got to be funded from somewhere. And if it were just gonna pile that on the UK’s debt in the future, then that’s just gonna start more problems. But I think the thing you’ve got to look at as well is the balance of that final two that will go to Conservative party members. It’s almost a given, one will be Rishi Sunak and he’s the kind of centre of the Tory party that means the other slot is most likely to be someone from the right of the Tory party. And the battle for that vote is what’s going on at the moment in Westminster, with lots of horse trading and debates and agitated phone calls about who exactly is the best person from the right of the party to represent a aggressive tax cutting pro-Brexit vision that will no doubt go down quite well with Tory party members.

Marc Filippino
Seb Payne is the FT’s Whitehall editor and the host of the FT podcast, Payne’s Politics, which comes out every Saturday. Thanks, Seb.

Sebastian Payne
Thanks, Marc.

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Marc Filippino
Chaos has gripped Sri Lanka. Tens of thousands of people marched on the capital this weekend. Some occupy the home of the country’s president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and even enjoyed kind of a pool party there.

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They forced the president to go into hiding and Rajapaksa has said he will step down. Protesters were simply fed up with soaring prices and gas shortages and an economic crisis that led Sri Lanka to default on its foreign debt. Marwaan Macan-Markar covers Southeast Asia for our sister publication Nikkei Asia, and he describes Sri Lanka as a signal of a broader problem.

Marwaan Macan-Markar
Sri Lanka right now is shaping up to be the canary in the coal mine for what could become a global crisis of large number of developing countries saddled by a lot of debt, unable to pay this debt on account of, you know, their own baggage laws, for instance. Pakistan is having a huge problem with debt. There are a number of African countries that are also facing this crisis. The problem for Sri Lanka is it does not have the luxury of this power vacuum continuing for a number of days because the country needs a stable government to work on negotiating with the IMF to set steps towards an IMF programme and receiving billions of dollars from the IMF as financial relief to get the economy going again.

Marc Filippino
So Marwaan, this economic crisis in Sri Lanka turned into a political crisis and now there’s a political vacuum. What happens next? Who can replace Rajapaksa?

Marwaan Macan-Markar
The one figure who is relatively neutral in all this is probably the Speaker of the House of the Parliament because he at least has the hearing of people on the government benches and the opposition. But he is sort of a dull, colourless figure. So I’m not sure whether he might be the one to settle into the presidential chair, but it’s a wild guess out there, and that’s unfortunately a problem Sri Lanka cannot afford at this stage.

Marc Filippino
Now, in addition to following the story closely and reporting from the country, you yourself are Sri Lankan. What’s it like for you to watch this story unfold?

Marwaan Macan-Markar
Well, I think what is very sad is that Sri Lanka has captured headlines for a series of crises. The worst of it, of course, was the nearly 30-year ethnic conflict between government troops and the Tamil Tigers. The country was equally ravaged by the tsunami of 2004. But I think what’s very troubling about this is that it has basically, I feel, destroyed one generation or if not two. And that is the saddest part, because I belong to a generation that came of age when the war began. And I think my generation and the one that followed also suffered likewise in the way that your hopes and dreams would not have been fulfilled because of the crisis, the political and ethnic crisis. And now you have an economic crisis. And the number of people who are fleeing the country who are applying for passports basically is a measure of the hopelessness. And that means we are gonna see, as I said, one generation or if not two, taking the beating as a result of the political class that has unfortunately led the country to economic ruin.

Marc Filippino
Marwaan Macan-Markar covers Southeast Asia for the FT’s sister company, Nikkei Asia. Thanks, Marwaan.

Marwaan Macan-Markar
Thank you.

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Marc Filippino
Japan is still reeling from the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last week. Investigators are piecing together clues about why this happened. But the assassination has highlighted the link between Abe’s party, the LDP and South Korea’s Unification Church. It’s known as the Moonies and is widely derided as a cult. Here’s the FT’s Kana Inagaki with new details about the suspected shooter.

Kana Inagaki
He reportedly said that his mother had made large financial donations to the group and that caused financial difficulties for the household. The suspect actually reportedly told investigators that he targeted Abe because he was the grandson of someone that he believed played a role in bringing Moonies to Japan. Some of the powerful political figures within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party have been known to have ties with Moonies. Abe himself is not a member of the organisation, but it’s been publicly known that he gave speeches during their events. It’s been an open secret in Japan that there is a relationship between the LDP politicians and Moonies. You know, they’re very useful in collecting votes as well for the LDP, but no one has actually really talked about it in the past.

Marc Filippino
So Kana, two days after Abe was murdered, his party, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the LDP, they won a landslide victory in upper house elections. What kind of impact will Abe’s assassination have on the party and its policies if any?

Kana Inagaki
Abe has such a big influence that even after he stepped down as prime minister, he basically had a lot of influence over policy in general, from economy to foreign policy. But for, you know, prime minister Fumio Kishida, some analysts say that this is actually gonna give him a freer hand to pursue his own policies since Abe has such a big influence even after he stepped down as prime minister. So with his death, some people assume that, you know, Kishida would be able to bring some of his own colour to his economic programme as well as foreign policy.

Marc Filippino
Kana Inagaki is the FT’s Tokyo bureau chief.

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Before we go, we’re curious about remote work, so we’re hoping to hear from listeners who have moved to a new location after their employer greenlit them to work remotely. We’re especially interested to hear from our US listeners. So please send us a voice memo about why you moved, where you moved from and to, and how you feel about your new work-life balance. Send it to marc.filippino@ft.com. That’s marc.filippino@ft.com. We’ll leave that email in the show notes and we might just feature you in an upcoming episode.

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You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

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