(Kyodo News via AP)Then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, right, receives a briefing on hometown tax donation in Miyakonojo city, Miyazaki prefecture, southern Japan on June 15, 2016. Here’s whySF private schools inch closer to reopening, but public schools may not...Coronavirus live updates: Breed says SF diners could be back inside by end of monthAs his parents’ eldest son, Suga defied tradition by leaving for Tokyo rather than taking over the family strawberry farm in Akita prefecture. “He was someone you wouldn’t notice if he was there or not.”After graduating from high school, Mr Suga relocated to Tokyo where he found work in a cardboard factory in order to put himself through night college.Mr Suga’s sweet tooth and love of pancakes is well documented, as is his black belt in karate and his daily habit of rising at 5am, reading the news, doing 100 sit ups and taking a 40-minute walk – before finishing the day with another 100 sit ups.A few years later, Mr Suga and Mr Abe are believed to have forged a deep professional connection, bonding over issues such as the North Korean abductions and Pyongyang’s nuclear programme. Yoshihide Suga is applauded after being elected as Japan's new prime minister at parliament's lower house in Tokyo, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020. He credits himself for a boom in foreign tourism, which he hopes to revive when the coronavirus pandemic subsides, as well as lowering cellphone bills and bolstering agricultural exports.Former Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga walks out of the prime minister's office after a cabinet meeting Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020, in Tokyo.
Here’s what we knowFormer Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga walks at the prime minister's office after a cabinet meeting Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020, in Tokyo.
“So there is no need for Suga to have his own vision.”Disciplined, focused, pragmatic - and masterfully skilled at bureaucratic wrangling - Mr Suga, 71, is well established in Japan as a powerful policy coordinator, advisor and all-round right-hand man of the outgoing prime minister Shinzo Abe.We rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism.After the PM was forced to step down a year later, again due to ill health, Mr Suga was said to be instrumental in masterminding Mr Abe’s political comeback, which resulted in him winning the 2012 election.
This paved the way for Mr Suga to secure his first cabinet position in 2006 as minister of internal affairs and communications during Mr Abe’s first stint as prime minister. (Kyodo News via AP) His profile also surged last year around the time of the Imperial coronation when he announced live on television to the nation the hotly awaited name of a new era, to mark the arrival of a new emperor.Continuity is currently forecast to be a dominant theme for Mr Suga if he succeeds in becoming Japan’s next prime minister.Mr Suga, however, has made no secret of the fact that he comes from more humble origins: he is the son of a strawberry farmer and a teacher from a small rural city Yuzawa, in Japan’s northern prefecture Akita.Twice a day for more than seven years, he has conducted tight-lipped televised press briefings that have earned him the nickname Teppeki – aka The Iron Wall.Despite his typically conservative suited appearance, Mr Suga is an anomaly in Japan’s still largely hereditary and hierarchical world of politics (as is the case with the two other candidates - as well as Mr Abe, scion of a political dynasty).He slowly worked his way into the political world, first becoming an assemblyman in Yokohama, before making his national debut as a Lower House politician in 1996.He became a household name after ceremoniously holding up the calligraphy kanji of the new era name Reiwa – resulting in another more affectionate nickname: Uncle Reiwa (Reiwa Ojisan). Mariko Suga, wife of Japan's Prime Minister-elect Yoshihide Suga, talks to the supporters of Suga in Yokohama, near Tokyo, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020. Japan's Parliament elected Suga as prime minister Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020, replacing long-serving leader Shinzo Abe with his right-hand man. Suga has stressed his background as a farmer's son and a self-made politician in promising to serve the interests of ordinary people and rural communities. FILE - In this April 1, 2019, file photo, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga unveils the name of new era "Reiwa" at the prime minister's office in Tokyo. Mr Suga, who has relatively humble origins, has defied Japan's notoriously hierarchical political system His high-level positions have gone hand in hand with a reputation for skillfully wielding his power to control Japan’s famously sprawling and powerful bureaucracy. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet resigned, clearing the way for his successor Suga to take over after parliamentary confirmation later in the day.Suga has said his top priorities will be fighting the coronavirus and turning around a Japanese economy battered by the pandemic. Policies of so-called Suganomics are likely to embrace monetary easing and fiscal stimulus - key pillars of Abenomics – alongside balancing the coronavirus pandemic with limiting its impact on a fragile economy.Since then, Mr Suga has been the consistent if low-key and taciturn face of the Abe government. He also defended favoritism and cronyism scandals that occurred under Abe, saying the investigations into the cases were properly handled.TV sets show a live footage of Yoshihide Suga as he is elected as Japan's new prime minister, at an electric store in Fukuoka, southern Japan Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020.