Yoshihide Suga won the race to succeed Shinzo Abe as leader of the Liberal Democratic party and prime minister of Japan in a landslide last year. He was the continuity candidate, vowing to carry on Abe’s policies; the competence candidate, known for his powerplays behind scenes; and the consensus candidate, unaligned with any of the party’s large organised factions.
Those qualities were his strength — but they also turned out to be his weakness and help explain why he has resigned. The promise of continuity left him struggling to define a policy agenda of his own, something his successor will need to do to endure; his image of competence was undermined by a perceived failure to get a grip on Covid-19; and his election by consensus meant that none of the underlying tensions in the LDP after eight years of Abe were resolved, with the party’s younger generation shut out of the top jobs. His position was always weaker than it looked.
Immediately after taking office, Suga made the fateful decision not to call a general election — which he would most likely have won comfortably — but to govern for the last year of the current Diet. However, the purpose of his administration never became clear. Officials in the Kantei, as the prime minister’s office is known, muttered about Suga’s reluctance to delegate. His defiantly uncharismatic public presence, which had served him well as a government spokesperson, was less suited to the role of frontman and national leader.