End of Abe and rise of Suga
With Abe’s resignation, Yoshihide Suga is now Prime Minister of Japan. How did he navigate the past couple of weeks to premiership?
Source: Flickr
On August 28, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that he would be stepping down from his role, bringing an abrupt end to nearly eight years of political stability. Now, after weeks of political tension, Yoshihide Suga is set to take over Abe’s role.
Yoshihide Suga, popularly known to be the son of a strawberry farmer and school teacher, is a largely uncharismatic character in Japanese politics.
Prior to the announcement of Suga’s premiership, the Japanese government scrambled to find a successor. Of course, the person to take on Abe’s position was expected to come from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the main conservative arm of the Japanese government, as a result of a weak and disjointed opposition. The LDP has been in nearly continuous power since its inception in 1955.
Due to the sudden nature of Abe’s resignation, the government resorted to an emergency process, whereby voting on the next prime minister was constricted to members of parliament and selected representatives from 47 of Japan’s prefectures. With this in mind, Suga’s election victory might have been based on hidden relations between political elites.
The “extraordinary election” began on September 8, where Suga - the chief cabinet secretary at the time - was immediately pitched as most likely to win.
Aside from Suga, two other staples in Japan’s political life fought for the position: former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and former LDP Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba. However, neither held a favorable position amongst members of parliament.
In particular, Ishiba remained favorable amongst the Japanese public, as in a June survey by the Asahi Shimbun, it was found that 31 per cent of respondents preferred Ishiba whilst 3 per cent were in favor of Suga. Nonetheless, numerous obstacles stood in his way.
As mentioned earlier, back-room deals might have played a significant role in this election, helping secure Suga’s victory. Currently, the LDP is led by Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai, who has a firm grasp over factions within the party - also known as habatsu. Traditionally, the habatsu have proven integral in elections, seeing as members have been expected to follow the voting decisions of their leaders. After Abe’s resignation, Nikai was quick to convince various LDP factions to support Suga, in hopes of preventing a prolonged inter-party struggle.
With Suga’s victory, the world will be watching to see how he adapts to Japan’s pressing policy issues.
On one hand, foreign affairs will remain an area of crucial attention: disputes between Japan and China over the South and East China Seas persist, and during the past few years, North Korea has incessantly conducted missile tests aimed at Japanese shores. South Korean and Japanese relations are also tense, with no end to post-war grievances in sight.
Domestically, Suga will have to consider how to mend the economy following a downturn prompted by Covid-19, whilst simultaneously dealing with a rapidly ageing population.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Abe’s resignation was not what the nation expected, and possibly not what Abe imagined either. But in spite of the scandals and uncertainties during his time in office, Abe was a necessary stability for Japan following seven years of alternating leadership. In the words of Ian Bremner, a foreign affairs columnist at TIME, “just because Abe failed to be a transformative politician didn’t make him a failed one.”
Over the past seven years, Japan proved a protector of the liberal international world order, managing to ensure the maintenance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (now known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership) and the creation of the Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement, in the face of both domestic and international opposition.
On a separate note, Abe has also been praised for bringing women’s rights into the political spotlight. Gender equality remains a pertinent issue in Japan, which can be demonstrated by continued phenomena such as matahara (maternity harassment), or by discrimination scandals which have struck the country in the recent years.
Kathy Matsui, vice chair and chief strategist for Goldman Sachs, who was also credited by Abe for coining the term “womenomics”, commented on Abe's premiership in a linkedin post: “in my perspective, the Abe government demonstrated leadership in two areas which no prior postwar administration was willing to tackle: corporate governance and womenomics.”
“On the latter, there’s obviously work to be done in promoting more women leaders, but it was the first time the Japanese government focused on gender diversity as an imperative for economic growth,” Matsui added.
Until time has passed, one can do little but speculate how Suga’s premiership will look like. But, one thing remains clear: whilst Abe defined almost a century of Japanese politics, the problems he faced are likely to define centuries to come.