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September 16, 2020 Yoshihide Suga, appointed leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan last Monday, was elected new premier in an extraordinary session of parliament, obtaining 314 votes out of the 465 available in the House of Representatives.



The 71-year-old Suga, head of cabinet since 2012, succeeds Shinzo Abe, who resigned a few days ago for health reasons, after almost eight uninterrupted years at the helm of the government.



The new prime minister, right-hand man of the outgoing premier Shinzo Abe since 2012, whose policy he will continue, will dissolve the reservations on the names of the ministers belonging to the government in the coming hours.



The challenges facing the new government, in addition to containing the pandemic and relaunching an economy in serious difficulty, are the revision of Japan's national security policy, called upon to choose whether or not to adopt missile defense instruments, the management of the alliance with the US and shaky relations with China and Korea, the internal challenges of pacifying the factions of the ruling party and the country's drive towards digitalization.



At 71 years of age, Suga will be the oldest prime minister to take office since Kiichi Miyazawa in 1991.