Yoshihide Suga Elected As The New Prime Minister Of Japan After Shinzo Abe’s Resignation
Image Credit – BBC
Yoshihide Suga was elected as the Prime Minister of Japan by the country’s parliament after Shinzo Abe resigned last month due to health reasons.
He was elected as the leader of the governing party earlier this week and on Wednesday he was elected as the new Prime Minister through voting.
He is expected to follow the former PM’s policies being a close ally of him.
On Wednesday Mr. Abe attended his last cabinet meeting and talked to the media about his achievements in the eight long years of holding the position.
As predicted, Mr. Suga received the majority of the votes, 314 out of 462 at Japan’s lower house, Diet getting elected as the new PM of the country.
As the majority of the lower house is led by a union fronted his conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), his win was quite obvious.
He will also be receiving a ceremonial endorsement by the Emperor of Japan at the Imperial Palace.
The world’s third-largest economy, Japan was already facing low birth rates and a widely aging society with one-third of its population being over the age of 65. The country is now struggling to contain the COVID-19 infection like the rest of the world and has recorded the biggest economic decline in decades.
Before being elected as the PM, the veteran politician held the position of the most senior role in government after the PM, the Chief Cabinet Secretary for years.
He has promised to continue all the policy initiatives launched by his predecessor Shinzo Abe. He has been widely successful in his role as Mr. Abe’s right-hand man and the Chief Cabinet Secretary, especially in dealing with foreign policy. How he settles in his new role as the Prime Minister of Japan has become the talk of the world.
Being the son of a strawberry farmer, he is someone exceptional among Japan’s political elites. MR. Suga started his political career with city council elections after he worked as a secretary for an LDP lawmaker and soon became a member of the Diet in 1996.
He was a cabinet minister under Junichiro Koizumi in 2005 and became a prominent figure in Mr. Abe’s cabinet.
The now 71-year-old has been known for efficient and practical under Shinzo Abe and gained Mr. Abe’s support in his bid for the leadership.
He made his most significant public appearance when the then Emperor Akihito handed over the reign to his son Naruhito unfurling the name of the new Reiwa era in 2019.
There are speculations that he holds the position only for the rest of Mr. Abe’s term as he took over mid-term.
A general election will be held next year where his fate will be decided by the general electorate. According to the experts, he might not be the first choice of his own party LDP for that.
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