Japanese Prime Minister Suga to step down after a year in office
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced Friday that he will not seek re-election as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party at the end of September, and public broadcaster NHK reports he will then step down as prime minister. Suga, 72, took over as prime minister in September 2000 to finish out the term of Shinzo Abe, who resigned for health reasons.
The government's slow response to the surge of COVID-19's Delta variant and decision to hold the Tokyo Olympics sent Suga's approval ratings below 30 percent, even after the Olympics went off without any major problems and Japan won a record haul of medals.
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Whoever leads Japan next "isn't likely to change basic policies such as the country's close alliance with the U.S," the Journal says, but Suga's early departure "raises the risk that the world's third-largest economy will fall into another period resembling the 1990s and 2006-12, when prime ministers changed nearly every year and the country's profile on the international stage withered."
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