The Indonesia Post – Hundreds of staff from the Japanese Prime Minister’s office were lined up near the exit of the building. They then clapped in unison when Shinzo Abe walked out. It was a final round of applause – a round of honor for the honorable Shinzo Abe – who officially resigned from the post of prime minister for health reasons.
This moment also marks the beginning of a new era. Yoshihide Suga’s era. The veteran politician who is elected replaces Abe. He was elected after winning a majority vote, totaling 377 votes. Meanwhile, the two other candidates, namely Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fumio Kishida, which combined were only 157 votes.
The election of the 71-year-old politician is not a surprise. The voting process carried out by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has long been predicted to be won by Suga.
He is not new. He is the Japanese cabinet secretary. He is Abe’s close friend. Often referred to as Abe’s right hand.
The difference is, he is not the son of a bureaucrat like Abe. His father-Wasaburo is a strawberry farmer. His mother-Tatsu is a teacher. He is from Akita Prefecture – the mountainous region of Tahuko in northern Japan.
Suga is known as a tough politician. One of them is like the first time competing for the position of being the Yokohama city council. At that time, the man who was born on December 6, 1948 had no political acquaintance or political experience. His experience is working odd jobs in factories and fish markets.
But this “bottom person” has strong capital. Unyielding determination. In order to gain sympathy, he went to every resident’s house. One by one. On foot. Every day. 300 houses per day. Until the end of the campaign, he had visited a total of 30 thousand houses.
Now the toughness is again tested. Will the “bottom” who build politics from below make Japan recover. Recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic and an economy which is currently in recession. And return Japan to be the country with the third largest economy in the world as before. (dd/bbs)
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