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TOKYO: Yoshihide Suga became Japan’s new prime minister on Wednesday, and the former chief cabinet secretary is expected to strictly adhere to the policies advocated by Shinzo Abe during his unprecedented tenure.
Suga, 71, won an easy victory in a parliamentary vote, where his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (PLD) has a dominant majority.
He bowed deeply as lawmakers applauded his victory, but did not immediately comment. He is not expected to speak until Wednesday night, when he gives his first press conference as prime minister.
Suga’s new cabinet was announced shortly after the vote, and several ministers kept their posts, including Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Finance Minister Taro Aso.
Abe’s brother Nobuo Kishi, who was adopted by his uncle as a child and bears his surname, is the new Defense Minister, replacing Taro Kono, who becomes Minister of Administrative Reform.
Suga is viewed as a continuity candidate and has said his career was inspired by a desire to follow Abe’s policies, though analysts warned of future challenges.
“Difficult problems are mounting before Suga’s cabinet,” said Shinichi Nishikawa, a political science professor at Meiji University in Tokyo.
“The coronavirus is the top priority to address. On the diplomatic front, there are many uncertain factors, including the US presidential election, “he told AFP.
Abe formally resigned on Wednesday along with his cabinet, ending his record career in office with one year remaining in his term.
He was expelled for a recurrence of ulcerative colitis, a bowel disease that has plagued him for a long time.
Tokyo’s stock markets were largely unaffected by Suga’s election, and no major policy changes were expected when the Bank of Japan wraps up a two-day meeting on Thursday.
‘This is my mission’
Suga has spent decades in politics and has a reputation for pushing government policies through a sometimes intractable bureaucracy.
He tenaciously defended the government as his main spokesperson, even in sometimes irritable exchanges with journalists.
His upbringing, as the son of a strawberry farmer father and school teacher mother, sets him apart from Japan’s many blue-blooded political elites.
But while he has championed some measures aimed at helping rural areas like his hometown of Akita in northern Japan, his political views remain a mystery.
He is seen as more pragmatic than ideological, and during his campaign he spoke more about the need for administrative reforms than about grand guiding principles.
Suga has said that reviving the economy, which was already in recession before the pandemic, will be a top priority, along with containing the virus – essential if the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics opens as scheduled in July 2021. .
Your recipe for doing that? More of the same.
“To overcome the crisis and give the Japanese people a sense of relief, we must succeed in what Prime Minister Abe has been implementing,” Suga said after being elected leader of the LDP on Monday.
“This is my mission.”
‘All my strength’
His cabinet was seen as evidence of those plans, with a host of familiar faces, including just two women, the Justice and Olympics ministers, compared to the three who served in Abe’s last government.
Suga is expected to stick with his predecessor’s signature “Abenomics” program of vast public spending, massive monetary easing and cutting red tape.
And on the foreign policy front, where Suga is a relatively newbie, he is also likely to follow Abe’s path, prioritizing the key relationship with the United States, regardless of who is president after the November elections.
Relations with China may become more complicated with a global tightening of opinion against Beijing after the coronavirus and the unrest in Hong Kong.
There has been speculation that Suga could call snap elections to consolidate his position and avoid being seen as an interim prime minister, but he has been cautious about the prospect.
Abe, who served as prime minister for a total of eight years, will remain as a legislator, and some will discuss the possibility that he could undertake diplomatic missions.
On Wednesday morning, as he prepared to resign, Abe said he had given “all my strength” and was ending his term “with a sense of pride.”
“I owe everything to the Japanese people.” – AFP
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