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WINNER DISCONNECTED: Yoshihide Suga after being elected by his own to assume leadership of the ruling PLD party on Monday. Photo: STR / JIJI PRESS
Yoshihide Suga received more than half of the votes in the leadership vote of the Japanese ruling LDP party. After all the sun marks, he will be the country’s next prime minister this week.
On Monday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga (71) received 377 of the 535 possible votes he could get in the leadership election of the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD) in Japan. Reuters reports.
Suga is the son of a strawberry farmer and since 2012 he has been the government’s chief cabinet secretary, which means he has played the role of right-hand man to outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
However, after Abe decided to resign in August due to his own health, his closest supporter may soon win the post of the country’s head of state.
The party has a majority in the lower house of the Japanese parliament. This means that Suga can be sure that he will be able to replace Abe on Wednesday of this week.
ON AND OFF: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe receives flowers from his successor as party leader, Yoshihide Suga, after Monday’s leadership elections. Photo: Eugene Hoshiko / Pool AP
– It started from nothing
– I started from scratch, with no family connection or connection to the place, Yoshihide Suga says according to The Wall Street Journal about the first time he tried to get a place in Yokohama city hall.
He then moved to the city after growing up in the small town of Akinomiya.
Growing up, he must have been good at sumo wrestling. Apparently, however, he did not like to show his strength and gently pulled his opponents out of the ring.
– Even an ordinary person like me can, if he works hard, aspire to become prime minister. It is a true democracy, Suga said when he launched his campaign to become the next leader of the PLD.
POSSIBLE MILITARY EQUIPMENT: Soldiers from the Japan Navy Self-Defense Forces during a ceremony in 2018. Photograph: KIM KYUNG-HOON / X01368
This is how Suga will rule
In the battle for leadership, Suga promised to continue Abe’s financial strategy, known as “Abenomics.” This implies deregulation and state support for the business community.
He has also promised to continue Abe’s project to reform Article 9 of the Constitution, the part of the Constitution that, after the defeat of the war, refused Japan to possess military forces for anything other than defense of the country. This means that the country cannot participate in military operations abroad.
Abe, and now his most likely successor, has wanted to change that.
In foreign policy, Suga has little experience, but according to Reuters he said that he considers the alliance with the United States to be important for the country’s security. At the same time, it also wants stable relations with neighbors like China.
He has also stated that he is willing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to discuss the issue of the kidnapping of Japanese nationals by the neighboring country in the 1980s.
Suga has also entered the leadership process with promises to prioritize preventing the spread of Covid-19, to “do everything” to complete the Olympics next year.
Not all Japanese agree that the Olympics should be prioritized as the pandemic rages, according to a survey this summer:
also read
Warm Japanese to complete the Olympics: 1 in 3 will cancel
Can go to new elections
While Suga has broad support in the party, several of the party’s leaders have nonetheless hinted that the leadership change may mean that the prime minister must hold new elections starting in October.
– We expect a parliamentary election soon, perhaps already in October. Then we will have elected a new prime minister before a new president is elected in the United States, Defense Minister Taro Kono said on Friday.
Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso also said the new administration could quickly face criticism for not being elected.
“In that case, I think the new prime minister will dissolve parliament,” said Aso, who was prime minister of Japan from 2008 to 2009.
MAN IN CLOTHES: Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso hints at parliamentary elections in Japan as early as October. Photo: KAZUHIRO NOGI / AFP
However, a new election, the coalition partners in the Buddhist Komeito party will not be happy.
– Our priority must be to deal with the crown bud. People want to go back to work and I don’t think they want a month or two with the power vacuum that a new election will lead to, says Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi.
