Spectre of post-Olympics jinx hangs over Suga

TOKYO • Japan hosted the Olympics three times before Tokyo 2020, and all ended with the prime minister's resignation within the same year.

While they stepped down for different reasons, the pattern has raised the spectre of the same fate for Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, whose Cabinet approval has fallen to new lows.

If history serves as a guide, Mr Suga has cause for concern.

Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Games, Sapporo held the 1972 Winter Games, and Nagano, the 1998 Winter Games.

In 1964, Mr Hayato Ikeda saw out the Games, and resigned a day after the closing ceremony to focus on his recovery from cancer. He passed the baton to Mr Eisaku Sato, who stepped down in July 1972, five months after the Sapporo Games. His unprecedentedly long tenure then - seven years and eight months - had fostered discontent within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the public.

Months after the 1998 Nagano Games, Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto resigned following the LDP's crushing defeat in the Upper House election over deeply unpopular fiscal policies.

Dr Mikitaka Masuyama of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo told The Sunday Times that the change of prime ministers after the Games was a coincidence, and he felt Mr Suga might break the jinx.

LDP bigwigs have backed Mr Suga's re-election in an internal vote next month to choose a new party chief, and the fractured opposition means a majority for the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito is within reach as a general election looms.