Photo/Illutration Voters are kept more than 20 meters away as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivers a campaign speech in Kochi on Oct. 14. (Daisuke Ninagawa)

KOCHI--Police visibly tightened security for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Kochi and Tokushima as he campaigned for an Upper House by-election candidate six months after a scare involving a pipe bomb.

Kishida visited the cities on the island of Shikoku on Oct. 14 with Natsuo Yamaguchi, leader of junior coalition partner Komeito, to seek support for a ruling coalition candidate in an Oct. 22 by-election for the upper chamber’s Tokushima-Kochi electoral district.

In Kochi, Kishida addressed roughly 1,200 people from atop a ruling Liberal Democratic Party campaign vehicle in a public park. The audience was kept about 25 meters away.

Many in the crowd expressed surprise at the tight security.

“This is the most heavily guarded stump speech I have ever seen,” one person said.

The heavier security reflects a new approach to guarding VIPs after an incident in Wakayama in April when a man lobbed an explosive device near Kishida as he prepared to campaign on behalf of a Lower House by-election candidate. The suspect has been indicted for attempted murder.

That security scare came on the heels of the fatal shooting of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe while he was giving a campaign speech for an Upper House election in the city of Nara in July last year.

During the visit to Kochi, the LDP’s prefectural chapter prohibited public access to a 40-meter square around the campaign vehicle. The crowd was kept back by metal rails a little less than 1 meter high.

People involved in the campaign were accommodated in a zone just outside the metal rails, but members of the public stayed in an area bordering that spot.

They went through a metal detector and had their baggage checked before entering the area.

After the speech, Kishida fist-bumped some members in the audience who turned out to be campaign staff. They were identifiable by orange-colored stickers placed on their chests.

In contrast, Abe, the last sitting prime minister to make a campaign speech in Kochi Prefecture, shook hands with voters when he visited in 2013, according to police and other sources.

When Kishida spoke in Tokushima later in the day, he was also kept well away from voters.

A high school student who was holding a rolled newspaper to shield him from drizzling rain was asked by a police officer if he intended to throw it.

“I came here to hear Kishida’s speech because I had heard he was coming,” the student said. “I was surprised to be stopped by police for questioning.”

Security is expected to be similarly tight in Nagasaki Prefecture on Oct. 15, when Kishida visits to campaign for an Oct. 22 by-election in the Lower House’s Nagasaki No. 4 district.

(This article was written by Daisuke Ninagawa, Hiroyuki Yoshida and Takashi Ogawa.)

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