Up to 62 per cent of Japanese people now oppose the state funeral for Abe, Japan’s longest-serving and internationally revered prime minister, according to a poll on Sunday by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, up 9 per cent from a week earlier. The backlash is also having a significant impact on his successor’s approval ratings – just 29 per cent support the cabinet of Fumio Kishida – while 76 per cent say the government has not done enough to investigate its links with the church.

Two local councils run by Japan’s opposition parties, the Kamakura Municipal Assembly, south of Tokyo, and the Hayama Municipal Assembly, have written to Kishida urging him to call the funeral off.

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“It runs the risk of forcing the national government’s evaluation of Abe upon the Japanese people, and suppressing their freedom to make their own decisions,” wrote the Kamakura Assembly. “We must not hold a state funeral that would divide the people.”

Four Australian prime ministers – Anthony Albanese, Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott and John Howard – will arrive in Tokyo on Monday. It will be among the largest contingents of current and former prime ministers assembled for an international event.