Meet the new leader

Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s PM-in-waiting, starts and ends his day with 100 sit-ups

SON OF A FARMER

Suga, the son of a strawberry farmer, grew up in rural Akita in northern Japan. He went to Tokyo after high school and worked odd jobs to study at night college, before being elected to his first office in 1987 as a municipal assembly member in Yokohama.

STREET SPEECHES

Nikkei Asian Review says in a report that it was Suga who started the now popular street speeches in Japan. Known as ‘tsujidachi’, street speeches at railway stations are commonplace in the country. Suga used to greet train passengers and give them questionnaires with policy plans.

RISE OF SUGA UNDER ABE

Suga won a lower house seat in 1996 and was a long-time backer of outgoing Japan PM Shinzo Abe, pushing him to stand for a second term despite his disastrous first run in office, which ended after just a year. When Abe defied the odds and returned to power in 2012, he appointed Suga to the powerful chief cabinet secretary role, from which he is said to have helped push through several landmark Abe policies.

ABE’S MAN FRIDAY

Suga, who has a reputation for inscrutability, was a key government adviser, spokesman and policy enforcer. As chief cabinet secretary since 2012, he was basically Abe’s most important go-to man. He was effectively the face of Abe’s government, regularly defending decisions in press meets.

TAKING ‘ABENOMICS’ FORWARD

Suga says he will continue Abe’s signature “Abenomics” strategy of easy monetary policy, government spending and reforms, while juggling the problems of the pandemic and a slumping economy.

He has also said he will confront long-term issues such as Japan’s ageing population.

Shinzo Abe,

Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, announced last month that he was quitting because of ill health, ending a nearly eight-year term.