Yoshihide Suga has on Wednesday been installed as Japan’s prime minister by the country’s lower house of parliament replacing Shinzo Abe who resigned because of poor health and promising to continue his signature economic policies.
On Monday, 71-year-old Suga, who served in the powerful post of chief cabinet secretary during Abe’s nearly eight-year tenure took 377 of a total of 534 votes from Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers and regional representatives, against two rivals paving the way for him to become prime minister in a parliamentary vote this week because of the LDP’s majority in the lower house.
Suga, the son of a strawberry grower in northern Japan’s Akita prefecture, said in his victory speech he had come a long way, “I will devote all of myself to work for the nation and the people.”
Displaying no emotion, Suga bowed deeply several times in the lower house of parliament on Tuesday as fellow Liberal Democratic party [LDP] MPs applauded. His appointment was later confirmed in the upper house.
Suga who has said he would pursue Shinzo Abe’s key economic and foreign policies, he was the former Japanese leader’s right-hand man during Abe’s almost eight years in office throughout his second term, holding the position of chief cabinet secretary in his government.