TOKYO (JAPAN) – Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga won in a ruling party leadership election on Monday, leading him on the way for Japan’s first change of leader in nearly eight years.
Suga, 71, said this would encourage him to pursue his reform goals. “As I got big support in numbers today, the environment in which I can pursue my policy agenda in a stable manner has been secured.
Suga won 377 votes out of 534 votes cast, and in the leadership election by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) members of parliament and representatives of its 47 local chapters, he won 535 possible votes.
Suga is most likely to be elected prime minister in a parliamentary vote on Wednesday because of the majority LDP has secured in the lower house. He will serve out Abe’s term as party leader through September 2021.
Suga had emerged as a hopeful after Abe, Japan’s longest-serving premier, he resigned citing ill health, ending nearly eight years in office.