Suga’s downfall is a reminder that there is no escape from the public’s top priority of effectively handling COVID-19. His government’s pandemic policy has been characterised by missteps and poor communication with the public.
As Rikki Kersten explains in our lead article this week, Suga’s record on COVID-19 got off to a poor start when he… ‘forged ahead with the Go To Travel campaign which provided government subsidies for domestic travel to stimulate economic recovery. He was forced by spikes in infections to temporarily suspend the program on four occasions’.
On vaccines, Kersten explains, the report card for Suga was ‘must try harder’. Procurement ‘was slow and logistical obstacles held up the vaccine rollout’. Japan’s protectionist regulations required a local trial, which involved just 160 people, even though Pfizer had already conducted large-scale trials with tens of thousands of people.
Japan’s rollout eventually accelerated and over 49 per cent of the population are now fully vaccinated. But the public was frustrated as less than a quarter of the population were fully vaccinated when the Olympics began on 23 July and the prevalence of the Delta variant in Tokyo skyrocketed from about 20 per cent of cases in early July to almost 90 per cent in early August. As hospitals reached capacity, the government announced that only COVID-19 patients with ‘severe symptoms’ would be eligible for hospitalisation.
The sharp rise in daily COVID-19 infections throughout Japan’s fifth wave in July and August, which peaked at over 25,000 cases, and the pressure on hospitals, resulted in significant public discontent. Polling just after the Olympics in early August showed that 48 per cent of the public wanted Suga to step down at the end of his term in September while a further 18 per cent wanted him to resign immediately. Although over half of Japan enjoyed watching the Olympics, two-thirds of the public believed that the Games contributed to the rapid increase in Japan’s COVID-19 infections. The Suga cabinet’s approval rating plummeted to 25.8 per cent by late August.
Another nail in Suga’s coffin was the LDP’s loss in the mayoral election in Yokohama. The LDP candidate, Hachiro Okonogi, is a close Suga ally. Suga got his start in politics working for Okonogi’s father, while until June Hachiro was a member in the Suga cabinet. Suga went as far as making personal phone calls to support Okonogi — unprecedented involvement in a local election for a prime minister. The election was transformed from a local affair into a referendum on Suga’s handling of COVID-19.
As Jeff Kingston says, the loss in Yokohama, Suga’s home base, was damning. It showed how ‘electoral cooperation’ around a unified opposition candidate could squeeze the LDP in tightly contested seats. And it reminded LDP politicians that an ‘increase in voter turnout’, especially among unaffiliated voters likely to vote for the opposition, posed a serious threat to their own seats.
Suga lost the support of younger LDP politicians. Less secure in their seats, many younger LDP politicians didn’t want to contest the election with Suga as the face of the party and moved to convince party bosses to remove him.
The most popular choice to replace Suga is the Minister for Administrative Reform Taro Kono. He has a reputation as a maverick who is willing to break entrenched practices, including by boosting teleworking. He is neither a liberal like his father, Yohei Kono, nor a nationalist like Shinzo Abe, but a more moderate anti-xenophobia conservative. A recent leaked recording of Kono berating a bureaucrat hasn’t dented his momentum, and he has secured at least the tacit support of his faction leader Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso.
The second most popular choice with the public is Shigeru Ishiba, a former minister of defence and security policy wonk. But given Ishiba’s antagonistic relationship with Abe and Aso, who lead the largest factions, Ishiba is likely to struggle within LDP, and out of practicality he may yet throw his weight behind Kono.
Kono’s biggest rival is Fumio Kishida, a former foreign minister and head of the LDP’s most liberal faction. While in the past Kishida has been accused of being indecisive, this time he is in swinging hard with a proposal for a 30 trillion yen (US$273 billion) stimulus package to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. At the same time, he has sought to gain support from conservative LDP party bosses through flagging a proposal on missile strike capabilities.
The dark horse candidate is Sanae Takaichi, an Abe loyalist and right-wing nationalist who favours constitutional revision. A former minister of internal affairs and communications, she caused uproar in 2016 when she suggested that media outlets that were ‘unfair’ to the government could have their broadcast licences revoked. While Takaichi has won Abe’s endorsement, his faction members look unlikely to follow suit, describing the leader’s support for her as confusing.
The big question going forward is can Japan settle on leadership that is stable, or is it in for another period of revolving door premiers?
The administrative reforms of the late 1990s, which presidentialised the prime minister’s office with greater power and resources, enabled leaders like Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe to wield power and lead long-term governments. But, as the revolving door years and Suga’s tenure have shown, effectively wielding that power is difficult without some combination of public support and effective control over the party in power.
If Japan’s next prime minister wants the job for the long haul, they will need an effective and persuasive vision for the country to boldly and transparently deal with the pandemic and to lead Japan’s recovery.
The EAF Editorial Board is located in the Crawford School of Public Policy, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University.