TOKYO (REUTERS) -Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga will join the race to succeed his boss Shinzo Abe as prime minister, Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday (Aug 30), as the competition heats up to succeed Japan's longest-serving leader.
Mr Suga, a long-time lieutenant of Mr Abe's in a key supporting role, has denied interest in the top job but attracted attention with a series of interviews to Reuters and other news organisations in the days before Mr Abe's abrupt resignation for health reasons.
A Suga government would extend the fiscal and monetary stimulus that defined Mr Abe's nearly eight years in office.
Mr Abe, Japan's longest-serving premier, said on Friday he was stepping down due to a worsening of a chronic illness, setting the stage for a leadership election within his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
The LDP president is virtually assured of being prime minister because of the party's majority in the Lower House of Parliament.
Mr Suga decided to join the LDP race, judging that he should play a leading role given expectations of his ability to manage crises, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and Japan's deepest postwar economic dive, Kyodo said, citing an unnamed source.
Calls to Mr Suga's parliamentary office seeking comment on Sunday went unanswered.
Suga would join such candidates as former foreign minister Fumio Kishida and former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba.
A self-made politician in a country of political dynasties, Suga was chosen by Abe in 2012 for the pivotal role of chief cabinet secretary, acting as top government spokesman, coordinating policies and riding herd on bureaucrats.
"I'm thinking of running in the LDP leadership race. I'd like you to support me," Suga told LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai in a secret meeting on Saturday, TV Tokyo reported.
It quoted Nikai as replying, "Please do your best," which it said was a sign of his backing for Suga.
"Everyone wants to be on the winning side, so if Nikai is supporting Suga, they will jump on the bandwagon," said Koichi Nakano, political science professor at Sophia University.
LDP heavyweights aim to hold a slimmed-down leadership contest around Sept 13 to 15, public broadcaster NHK said on Sunday.
Nikai and parliamentary affairs chief Hiroshi Moriyama agreed late on Saturday to move quickly to avoid a "political vacuum", NHK said, without citing any sources for the information.
Usually, a leadership vote is held by LDP members of parliament along with grassroots party members in a month-long process.
But in the event of a sudden resignation, an extraordinary vote can be called with participants narrowed to MPs and representatives of the LDP local chapters.
The scaled-down version may disadvantage Ishiba, a longtime Abe critic who promotes boosting regional economies in Japan's depopulating hinterlands. He is popular with the public but less so among party MPs.
LDP factions will play a dominant role in the election, Sophia's Nakano said.
There might be media criticism that this is not a real contest, which might give Ishiba a bump up, but"not enough to change the momentum," he said.
