Suga Yoshihide

Suga Yoshihide (born December 6, 1948, Ogachi (now in Yuzawa), Akita prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese politician who served as leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Japan (LDP) and prime minister of Japan (2020–21). His brief tenure in office was marked by low approval ratings as a result of his government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Early life and political beginnings

Suga grew up in rural northern Honshu, where his father was a strawberry farmer and his mother was a schoolteacher. Rather than take over the family farm after he finished high school, Suga sought his fortune in Tokyo. He enrolled in Hosei University in 1969 and worked his way through college, graduating four years later with a law degree. In 1975 he secured his first political appointment as a secretary to Okonogi Hikosaburō, an LDP member who represented Yokohama in the Japanese Diet (parliament). Suga spent more than a decade assisting Okonogi, and during this time he learned the fundamentals of governance and constituent relations in Japan’s second most populous city. When Suga and his wife, Mariko, were married in 1980, one of Okonogi’s supporters reportedly bought him shoes as a gift because Suga spent so much time canvassing on foot throughout Yokohama. In 1987 Suga was elected to the Yokohama city council, and over time the influence that he came to wield in that position led to him being dubbed the “shadow mayor” of Yokohama.

In 1996 Suga entered national politics when he was elected to represent Yokohama’s Kanagawa 2nd district in the lower house of the Diet. As with his earlier political positions, Suga spent many years in the background as he assessed the inner workings of the bureaucracy. Japan’s postwar political elite was largely dynastic in character, and Suga’s rise to power was hindered by his lack of any significant family connections. Nearly a decade passed before he received his first cabinet-level position; in November 2005 he was named senior vice-minister for internal affairs and communications by Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro.

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Ascent to prime minister

Koizumi stepped down in September 2006 due to LDP term limits, and he was succeeded by Abe Shinzo. During the Koizumi administration, Suga and Abe had worked together to secure the return of Japanese citizens who had been abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and ’80s. The two became close during this time, and Suga’s political fortunes became inextricably linked with Abe. In Abe’s first cabinet, Suga retained his previous portfolio and was also named minister for privatization of the postal services. Japan Post was not only responsible for the delivery of letters and packages, but it was also Japan’s largest bank and insurer, and its privatization had been championed by Koizumi. His efforts were blocked by a vote in the House of Councillors (the upper house of the Diet), but Abe and Suga continued to press the case. Although Abe’s government was brought down by a pensions scandal after he had been in office for only a year, the privatization effort was ultimately successful, and a 10-year transition program was begun in October 2007. By that time, both Suga and Abe had stepped back from frontline politics, and from 2009 to 2012 the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) held power in the Diet.

In October 2011 Suga was named chairman of party organization for the LDP, and, when Abe was elected leader of the LDP in September 2012, Suga was tapped to serve as the party’s executive acting secretary-general. When the LDP captured the lower house of the Diet in a landslide victory in December 2012, Abe became prime minister, and he selected Suga as his chief cabinet secretary. Although Suga held media briefings twice a day during his tenure as Abe’s chief secretary, he remained largely unknown to the Japanese public. Suga moved the levers of bureaucracy to promote Abe’s two major policy initiatives: a raft of economic reforms that came to be dubbed “Abenomics” and the amendment of the so-called “peace clause” in Japan’s postwar constitution. The Abenomics stimulus package generated a temporary boost to the Japanese economy when it was launched in 2013, but recession soon returned, and Abe found himself facing dwindling domestic support. In addition, there was widespread opposition to the constitutional change that had become Abe’s signature issue. Although bills authorizing a “reinterpretation” of the constitution were approved by both houses of the Diet, there was little appetite for the proposed measures among the general populace. Despite the general dissatisfaction with the Abe administration, Suga ensured that Abe faced no internal challenges. Abe was reelected without opposition as LDP leader in September 2015.

Suga emerged from Abe’s shadow in dramatic fashion in the final days of the reign of Emperor Akihito. Akihito had announced his intention to abdicate, and on April 1, 2019, Suga unveiled a calligraphic depiction of Reiwa (“Beautiful Harmony”), the imperial name that had been chosen for Akihito’s successor, Naruhito. Immediately dubbed “Uncle Reiwa” in the media, Suga now had a public profile that matched his behind-the-scenes influence. In August 2020 Abe announced that he would resign due to ill health, and speculation swirled about who might be selected to follow Japan’s longest-serving prime minister. Suga was regarded as something of a dark horse, as he was not aligned with any of the LDP’s major intraparty factions, and his lack of significant foreign policy experience was seen as a hindrance. Nevertheless, he received a ringing endorsement from Abe, and support quickly coalesced around Suga. On September 14, 2020, Suga captured 377 of 534 votes in an internal party vote to become LDP leader. Two days later Abe formally stepped down, and Suga easily won a vote in the lower house of the Diet to become prime minister of Japan. Suga vowed to continue to promote Abenomics and the revision to the constitution, but his most immediate concern was the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating effects on the Japanese economy.

Suga’s term as prime minister

Suga’s early days in office were greeted with widespread support from the Japanese public, but his popularity began to slide as his government failed to make any serious headway against the COVID-19 pandemic. Japan’s vaccination rate lagged far behind those of other advanced democracies, and large parts of the country remained under a state of emergency as cases soared in urban centres. Suga attempted to bolster the flagging economy with programs that encouraged people to dine out and travel, but both of these measures had to be suspended when, perhaps predictably, infection rates skyrocketed. It was against this backdrop that Suga elected to push ahead with the postponed 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, a move that was strongly opposed by the Japanese medical establishment as well as an overwhelming majority of the general public. When the Games opened in late July 2021, Tokyo was already experiencing a surge in infections. By the time of the closing ceremonies on August 8, the city had recorded its highest one-day total for confirmed COVID-19 cases. While Suga insisted that there was no direct link between the Games and the record infection rate, the connection had been made in the minds of many Japanese.

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With a general election looming in late 2021 and his personal popularity plummeting, Suga saw no clear path to retaining the prime ministership. On September 3, just weeks before a scheduled internal LDP contest, Suga announced that he would not seek reelection as party leader. He formally stepped down on October 4 and was replaced by Kishida Fumio, an LDP veteran who had served as foreign minister in the second Abe cabinet.