Yoshihide Suga will be the new premier of Japan. The current head of Cabinet will take the place of the outgoing one Shinzo Abe, of which until a few months ago he was the right arm.
Suga will be nominated in the coming days by the Liberal Democratic Party after winning the internal primaries of the party that leads the center-right government with 377 votes in favor out of 535, beating former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
Seventy-one years old, the son of a farmer, Suga has been a staunch supporter of the outgoing prime minister since his second term in 2012, and was supported by one of the most powerful factions within the party because he was able to guarantee the continuity of reforms by Abe.
The latter, following his resignation announced two weeks ago for health reasons, will formally leave his post as Prime Minister on Wednesday 16 September. Soon after Parliament will meet to choose his successor, but given that the Liberal Democrats have a solid majority in the lower house, the body that chooses the Premier, there now seems to be no doubt about Suga's appointment.
The new Prime Minister will remain in office until September 2021 and according to the expectations of the main political analystsi will act in strong continuity with its predecessor. Japan will therefore continue on the path of Abenomics, the ultra-expansionary monetary policy inaugurated in the spring of 2013 with the aim of relieving Japan from the ten-year economic depression. There will be many difficulties to face: the GDP, despite the injected liquidity, continues to grow slowly, the public debt is very high and the inflation rate has remained lower than planned. The impact of the coronavirus pandemic which, among other things, forced the country to postpone the Tokyo Olympics should also be taken into consideration.
