JOIN USShinzo Abe’s resignation prompts speculation about his successor
In his resignation speech Friday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan said that the executives of his conservative political party were finalizing plans for selecting a new leader. Speculation about who that might be was swirling even before he took the podium.
Abe, who would have led the world’s third-largest economy until September 2021, had become deeply unpopular by the time he resigned. Still, the Liberal Democratic Party, which he leads, holds a firm majority in parliament. Whoever the party chooses as its next leader — a process that could be completed in the next week or so, analysts say — will almost certainly be elected Prime Minister by lawmakers.
Less clear is who the person will be, and whether that person will be able to carve out a different public profile in the job. A dark horse could still emerge. Abe has so far declined to name a favorite candidate, saying that the leading ones were all “very promising.”
Emerging from Abe’s shadow will be difficult for any successor, in part because the departing Prime Minister spent years maneuvering his rivals into “positions where they really look small, no matter their physical dimensions,” said Michael Cucek, an assistant professor of Asian studies at Temple University, Japan Campus.
Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s founding Prime Minister, was once described as “a great Banyan tree under which nothing grows,” added Cucek, who specializes in Japanese politics. “And Mr. Abe has basically had the same role over the last eight years.”
Abe’s successor will inherit a rapidly aging population and complex relationships with the world’s top two economies, China and the United States, who are themselves engaged in a bitter trade dispute.
He or she — but more likely he, as no female candidates are thought to be in the running — will also face a Japanese public that is dissatisfied with the Abe administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, even though the country has held its caseload to fewer than 67,000 infections and its deaths to fewer than 1,300.
Here are some of the leading candidates to replace him:
Taro Aso
Aso, 79, is a long-serving deputy Prime Minister and a former Prime Minister who could serve as a caretaker leader until 2021, when the Liberal Democratic Party is scheduled to hold its next election. But, in part because of his age, he is not viewed as a symbol of the party’s future.
Aso is a close ally of Abe, so the departing Prime Minister may feel an obligation to help him, the weekly magazine Sunday Mainichi reported in a recent analysis.
The Sunday Mainichi also noted that Aso was prone to gaffes. They include twice citing Nazi Germany as an example to emulate and comments last year that led critics to say he was blaming Japan’s low birthrate on women. He said that his comments had been misconstrued, but he also apologized and said that he should be more careful with his words. Some members of the Liberal Democratic Party fear he could embarrass them if he took the helm again.
Some reports in Japan have suggested that Aso ultimately may not run but would have a hand in picking Abe’s successor.
Yoshihide Suga
Suga, 71, is Abe’s chief Cabinet secretary and a leading candidate to replace him.
Because Suga is so close to Abe, he would be seen as inheriting both the good and bad parts of his legacy if he became Prime Minister, said Lully Miura, a political scientist and head of the Yamaneko Research Institute in Tokyo.
“This is the strong point of him and also his weak point,” she said, “because the public is kind of tired of the administration.”
Suga has a rags-to-riches background that plays well in politics. Born in the northern prefecture of Akita, he went to Tokyo to work in a cardboard factory after graduating from high school. He paid his way through university by working part-time jobs, including at a fish market.
Cucek said that in American terms, Suga’s current power was roughly equivalent to a White House press secretary, chief of staff and liaison with Congress all rolled into one — and that he would probably not want to become Prime Minister because he already wields more raw political power than Abe does.
Fumio Kishida
Kishida, 63, is a former Foreign Minister who is said to aspire to the top job. His father and grandfather were politicians, and he has been loyal to Abe and held several important roles in the party, including chair of the Liberal Democratic Party’s policy research council.
The biggest factor weighing against Kishida’s candidacy may be that he lacks retail political skills.
Another could be geography. Abe and Kishida are both from the Chugoku region of Honshu, Japan’s main island, which has supplied many of the country’s previous Prime Ministers.
“Having yet another PM from the Chugoku, even if he is from a different faction, might rub folks the wrong way,” Cucek said.
Shigeru Ishiba
Ishiba, 63, is an abrasive former Defence Minister who twice ran against Abe for the party leadership. The current Prime Minister is said to dislike Ishiba, in part because he nearly beat Abe in the party’s 2012 election.
Kazuhisa Kawakami, a law professor at Reitaku University, said that anyone taking Abe’s job would need to further his policy goals. Those include two signature aims that Abe failed to achieve as Prime Minister: revising the pacifist constitution installed by postwar American occupiers, and securing the return of contested islands claimed by both Japan and Russia so that the two countries can sign a peace treaty to formally end World War II.
“Properly maintaining the Abe administration’s policies is a requirement, and those in a position to do so are those close to the center of power,” Kawakami said. “Ishiba is not.”
Taro Kono
Kono, 57, is the current Defence Minister and former Foreign Minister, as well as a liberal maverick who belongs to a new generation of Japanese politicians that has been positioning itself to succeed Abe.
Kono hails from a family of politicians who have served in the Japanese parliament for decades. He is Twitter savvy, and recently told monthly magazine Bungei Shunju that he had wanted to be Prime Minister ever since he became a lawmaker. But Cucek described him as an eccentric “lone wolf.”
Kono is seen by other Liberal Democratic Party members as someone who handles the United States well, and they would see him as useful if President Donald Trump were to win the November presidential election, Cucek said.
“But I think the United States angle is not enough to carry him through,” he added.