Because of fears of the spread of "Corona"

Olympic Games 2020 casts a dark shadow on the future of the Prime Minister of Japan

• Tokyo has completed its preparations to receive the Olympics.

  Reuters

• Yoshihide Suga's future depends on the success of the Olympics.

  Father

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On these days last year, hopes were high that the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games would be a collective celebration of the victory over the coronavirus.

But that optimism appears to be premature by the time the Games open on July 23rd.

With only 20% of Japanese citizens vaccinated, fears are spreading that the Olympics will become an event that helps accelerate the spread of the Corona virus, and a poll published by the "Asahi Shimbun" newspaper on June 28 showed that 60% of voters in Tokyo want the Games to be canceled.

Expensive

Therefore, hosting the Games comes at a huge cost to Japan's political class.

The most political victim was the Governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, who had to spend the past week in bed after being overwhelmed by the fatigue caused by the incessant meetings and press conferences.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has also been hit by political crises over his insistence on going ahead with the Games along with his government's slow and inept handling of the pandemic.

Olympic organizers insist that the risk of infection can be mitigated by imposing strict safety measures. Medical tests will be conducted for 11,000 athletes daily, who are scheduled to participate in the competition, and their locations will be monitored via the Global Positioning System (GPS). Failure to comply with these measures may result in fines, and even expulsion from future games. But with foreign viewers banned from traveling to Japan for the Games, some 15,000 athletes and 53,000 officials (down from the 180,000 initially expected) are still expected to travel.

In late June, the Tokyo Organizing Committee announced that domestic viewership would be limited to 50% of venue capacity, or 10,000 viewers per location, or whichever is less.

But with the number of cases in Tokyo rising to more than 500 a day, the latest plan is to limit the number to 5,000 viewers per location, with all major events organized behind closed doors.

And if the country goes through with this latest decision, the number of viewers at each event could be 40% lower than previously planned, including the opening and closing ceremonies.

The commission warned that it could ban viewers outright.

The cancellation of the Games will lead to huge financial losses for the government, as the official cost of the Olympics is $15.4 billion, but government audits over the past several years indicate that it is much higher than advertised.

All of this money, except for $6.7 billion, comes from the public treasury.

Design

The IOC appears determined to push ahead with the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, in part because nearly 75% of its income comes from selling broadcast rights.

Broadcasters hope that the Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be the most profitable Olympic Games ever, but those accounts are at risk, if the lack of viewers will affect TV viewers' lack of interest in the event.

Given that spectators were asked to refrain from chanting, this is a possibility.

However, concern that the influx of visitors will lead to a sharp rise in cases of "Covid" is widespread in Tokyo.

This may be exacerbated by the slow pace of vaccine delivery in the country.

But the pace of vaccination has accelerated in recent weeks, as the government achieved its national target of vaccinating one million people a day, but not fast enough for the games not to become a bad news story.

So far, there appear to be 808,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 14,000 deaths in Japan - far fewer than in most advanced economies - yet the situation remains worrying.

Politically, the government's determination to move forward with the Olympics threatens to drive voters away, many of whom will be horrified by the way the government has handled the pandemic.

The embodiment of persistence

Suga became prime minister in September 2020, after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was forced to resign due to health issues.

Suga's humble origins appealed to voters.

Born into a family of strawberry farmers in rural Akita Prefecture, he worked in a carton factory to make his way to university.

He doesn't have Abe's charisma, but he embodies the fortitude that many older voters, who make up the majority of the LDP vote, like.

But his popularity has begun to wane amid criticism over his handling of the coronavirus.

A recent poll conducted by the Asahi Shimbun Press with Tokyo residents estimated that his cabinet's approval rating is only 33%, the lowest since he took office.

National elections are scheduled for October.

Despite his declining popularity, the threat Suga faces does not come from Japan's permanently divided opposition parties, but from rival factions in the ruling party.

Even before the pandemic, the Tokyo Games were subject to a lot of vilification by bad press, from shady dealings to win the Games to the sudden replacement of the chief architect of the new National Stadium, and multiple scandals that exposed sexism among the regulators.

And if the Olympics now fail to give Suga a boost, his party chiefs may feel it is necessary to get rid of him.

• With only 20% of the Japanese vaccinated, fears are spreading that the Olympic Games will become an event that helps accelerate the spread of the "Corona" virus.

• Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has faced political crises, due to his insistence on moving forward with the Games, along with his government's slow and inept handling of the pandemic.

• Cancellation of the Games will lead to huge financial losses for the government, as the official cost of the Olympics is $15.4 billion, but government audits over the past several years indicate that it is much higher than advertised.

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