Japanese Prime Minister Abe's Replacement
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, gestures toward Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga during a news conference in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, May 4, 2020.. Source.
As the average age of world leaders is 65 years old, health problems at the executive level are bound to rise. Now, Japan suffers. On Friday, August 28th, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced his resignation due to health concerns, with several scandals marking the end of Japan’s longest serving PM.
Since his teenage years, Abe suffered from a chronic illness called ulcerative colitis. People with the disease suffer from severe abdominal pain and persistent diarrhea, due to inflamed linings of the large intestine. Friday’s announcement was not the first time that Abe’s illness affected his position; this same illness is the reason for why he suddenly resigned from his first stint at PM in 2007. Preceding his resignation announcement, on August 17, hospital tests found that Abe’s condition had worsened.
Abe’s resignation is the latest in a series of recent difficulties for the Japanese government. Japanese citizens criticized Abe’s handling of COVID-19, deriding his mask distribution plan as “futile” and “inefficient”, and lamented the subsequent damage to Japan’s economy. His administration’s poor handling of COVID caused in part the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. This, combined with the recent Moritomo Gakuen and Kake Gakuen corruption scandals, leave a difficult road ahead for Abe’s successor.
Who is Abe’s successor? Meet Yoshihide Suga. He is a member of Abe’s party, the Liberal Democratic Party. The LDP is conservative-to-moderate on the ideological spectrum and believes in protectionism, pro-US foreign policy, low tax rates, and development of Japanese industry through subsidies and stimulation of domestic demand.
For 8 years, Suga has served as Abe’s Chief Cabinet Secretary (a position similar to the White House Chief of Staff, communications director and Vice President, but combined into one position). While he lacks the pedigree of Abe, the grandson of a former prime minister, Suga is cited as a major reason for why Abe stayed in power for so long. He already has a reputation for being the political brain power behind many of Abe’s policy successes.
With Suga in charge, what does Japan’s future look like? Given the pandemic, Suga will have to hit the ground running. Suga has vowed to pick up from where Abe left off. This includes sticking to Abe’s signature economic policy, referred to as “Abenomics,” and continuing with Abe’s plan to revise the pacifist constitution set in 1947. However, while new world leaders tend to express their lofty ideas for bringing about change, Suga has yet to articulate his own vision for Japan’s future. Perhaps that is for the best. With the turbulence of the global economy and the rising geopolitical threats from Beijing, many Japanese may feel that it is not the right time to adopt a completely new outlook in Japan.
The world’s 3rd largest economy lost its leader, and only time will tell if Suga’s brain power clears the current fog which rests over Japan’s future.