Japan: Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to step down
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announces that he will not be running for the Liberal Democratic Party at a press conference on September 3, 2021 in Tokyo.
AFP - BEHROUZ MEHRI
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
The head of the Japanese government will not run for the head of the conservative party in an internal poll on September 29, shortly before a general election.
He will in fact step down from power.
It's a surprise: despite his record unpopularity, he was considered the favorite in this internal election.
The Prime Minister of the third largest economy in the world is severely criticized for his action in the face of the pandemic as Japan fails to control the worst wave of Covid-19 infections, the fourth since the start of the health crisis.
Advertising
Read more
With our correspondent in Tokyo,
Frédéric Charles
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga was delighted to have managed to hold the Olympic Games "without health risk".
It's true, but outside the Olympic Village placed in a health bubble, Tokyo was and still is experiencing an explosion of cases of Covid-19, in particular the much more contagious Delta variant.
Many Japanese feel that the government has sacrificed their own health security on the altar of the Olympics.
They have lost all confidence in their Prime Minister and a bureaucracy that has lost control of the pandemic.
►
To read also: Covid-19: in Japan, the health situation is deteriorating and the population is panicking
Overwhelmed public hospital
Japan has long resisted the health crisis better than other countries. This is no longer the case today. The public hospital system is overwhelmed by the influx of patients. Forcing the government to limit hospitalizations to the most serious cases. There are problems with the supply of vaccine doses: the bureaucracy is unable to ensure their distribution without creating bottlenecks. And was late to order them. Just over a third of the population is
fully vaccinated
.
In October, general elections are to be held.
The incompetence of the conservative party in power, without interruption or almost, since the end of the war will not prevent it from remaining there.
The fragmented opposition is too weak.
At the lowest in the polls, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga serves as the scapegoat.
►
To (re) read: Japan: the atypical Yoshihide Suga succeeds Shinzo Abe
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Japan
Yoshihide Suga
On the same subject
Japan: new batches of Moderna vaccine suspended due to impurities in some vials
Covid-19: in Japan, the health situation is deteriorating and the population is panicking
Portrait
Japan: the atypical Yoshihide Suga succeeds Shinzo Abe