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TOKYO (Reuters) – In the days leading up to Shinzo Abe’s surprise resignation last month, when rumors of his poor health emerged in Japan, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s right-hand man was courting a ruling party chief whose backing Could make him king .
In a secluded dining room of a luxury hotel in Tokyo, Suga met Toshihiro Nikai, the general secretary of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), for a traditional Japanese meal. They shared stories from their youth when they both worked as secretaries to powerful politicians, according to a columnist who dined with them.
The dinner, Nikai’s third with Suga in as many months, came just over a week before Abe stepped down as Japan’s longest-serving Prime Minister and highlighted the kind of alliance-building that has made Suga a the main candidate to replace him.
At dinner, Suga thanked Nikai for keeping a firm grip on the PLD and said that he had allowed the Abe administration to execute its policies with ease, according to Fumiya Shinohara, the political columnist who was there with them.
Two weeks later, Nikai’s group was the first among the party’s factions to endorse Suga for the top job, support that makes him almost certain to be Japan’s next prime minister.
“In an environment where human relationships are paramount, that has been Mr. Suga’s best weapon,” Shinohara said, adding that their exchange over the dinner cemented an alliance now ready to control the ruling party.
Suga’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the dinner. Suga said, when asked on television about their discussion, that he and Nikai share a similar background and that he had introduced her to various people.
Nikai could not immediately be reached for comment.
For the past eight years, Suga, 71, has been the public face of the Abe government as the government’s main spokesperson, but for a long time he kept a relatively low profile. He became better known to the public when he unveiled the name, Reiwa, from the new imperial era last year, a moment of celebration that marked the rise of the new emperor and went viral, earning him the nickname “Uncle Reiwa “.
Behind the scenes, associates and analysts say Suga has been instrumental in shifting decision-making elements from Japan’s sprawling bureaucracy to the office of the prime minister and taming factional rivalries within the ruling party.
Suga is expected to maintain the political course set by his predecessor, upholding the pro-growth stimulus “Abenomics” policies aimed at pulling Japan out of deflation and keeping the economy afloat during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Suga will continue the vision that Abe gives him,” said Takashi Ryuzaki, a political analyst and former television journalist. “So there is no need for Suga to have her own vision.”
‘SOMEONE WHO WOULDN’T REALIZE’
In contrast to Abe, the scion of a political dynasty in Japan that bet his career on constitutional reform, Suga began his political career as an outsider and rose through the ranks of local politics.
At a press conference Wednesday in which he officially announced his offer, Suga spoke about growing up in a farming community in Akita prefecture in northern Japan.
“He was very quiet,” said Hiroshi Kawai, a former high school classmate who still lives in Suga’s hometown of Yuzawa and works as a local tour guide. “He was someone you wouldn’t notice if he was there or not.”
Suga left town shortly after finishing high school and worked in a cardboard factory in Tokyo to save money for college. After graduation, he worked as secretary to a prominent national legislator from Yokohama, home to Japan’s busiest port.
During his time in local politics, Suga launched an ambitious project to rebuild Yokohama’s waterfront, according to Isao Mori, an author who published Suga’s biography in 2016. In the eight years he spent in the city assembly, Suga It became known as the Yokohama “shadow mayor,” Mori said.
‘ACTOR ON A STAGE’
Suga has said that he starts most days at 5 a.m., checking the news before doing 100 sit-ups and walking for 40 minutes. Even among employees used to the grueling hours of politicians, he was seen as an outlier for his relentless work ethic.
Daisuke Yusa met Suga in 2004 when he was working as a salesman for a garbage company. Suga soon recruited him to work as his secretary.
“He used to say, think of yourself as an actor on stage and think objectively in what position you are in right now,” Yusa said, when asked about perceptions that Suga is more of a lieutenant than a leader.
Yusa, now a local politician, said Suga always emphasized the importance of doing your best no matter what the job.
“I think he has been able to remain in that position without school ties or political faction because he is not trying to excel,” he said.
Under Abe’s first administration in 2006, Suga headed the Interior Ministry, where he introduced a local tax program, offering tax deductions for those who donate money to local municipalities.
Matsushige Ono, who served as deputy minister under Suga, said the program met fierce resistance from some bureaucrats, who opposed introducing an unprecedented new tax scheme.
“He continued to defend his case because he saw how this would help rural communities,” Ono said.
NAVIGATING THROUGH THE BUREAUCRACY
When Abe regained the post of prime minister at the end of 2012, he re-selected Suga.
In 2016, faced with an increasingly strong yen, Suga created a framework for joint meetings of the Bank of Japan, the finance ministry and the banking regulator to signal to investors Tokyo’s alarm over yen spikes.
Officials had wanted to create such a framework for years, but friction between ministries prevented it from being implemented.
Mitsumaru Kumagai, a chief economist at the Daiwa Research Institute who speaks with Suga frequently, said Suga has been particularly adept at navigating the complex Japanese bureaucracy.
“He is aware of who and where the key person is in any ministry and understands how to move organizations by instructing that person,” Kumagai said.
This year, support for the administration went into free fall as the coronavirus pandemic hit an economy that was already slowing down. As Abe’s health began to visibly fail, speculation about Suga’s ambitions grew.
Shinohara, who joined Suga and Nikai’s August dinner, said the two men had joined because of their similar backgrounds.
“There are many politicians now who can give good speeches and others from bureaucracies who can manage politics, but he is the type of professional politician who has his own distinctive smell,” he said.
After dinner, the men left the hotel separately while journalists took pictures. A day later, Suga was asked on a television show if he was interested in running for the post of prime minister. Laughing, he said, “Not at all.”
(Reporting by Ju-min Park, Antoni Slodkowski, Mari Saito and Ami Miyazaki; written by Mari Saito; edited by Nick Tattersall)
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