Suga clears major hurdle to replace Japan's Abe

Yoshihide Suga, a long-time ally of outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, won a ruling Liberal Democratic Party leadership election on Monday, paving the way for him to become prime minister in a parliamentary vote this week.

Emer McCarthy reports.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga won a landslide victory in a ruling party leadership election on Monday (September 14), paving the way for him to replace Shinzo Abe as Prime Minister later this week.

71-year-old Suga has said he would continue Abe's signature "Abenomics" strategy of hyper-easy monetary policy, government spending and reforms while juggling the problems of COVID-19 and a slumping economy, while confronting longer-term issues such as Japan's ageing population and low birth rate.

"We must overcome this crisis, so that each person in Japan can feel safe and have a stable living.

In order to do that, we need to carry on Prime Minister Abe's measures and move forward with them.

I believe it is my mission to do so." Suga won 377 votes out of 534 votes cast, and 535 possible votes, in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) election by the party's members of parliament and representatives of its 47 local chapters.

It is virtually certain that he'll be elected prime minister in a parliamentary vote on Wednesday because of the LDP's majority in the lower house.

He will serve out Abe's term as party leader through to September 2021.

The son of a strawberry farmer from northern Japan, Suga was a loyal aide to outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who announced his resignation last month due to ill health.