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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s abrupt resolve to resign has caught Japan on low guard at a time of uncertainty, as the global coronavirus pandemic poses unprecedented demanding situations for the country.
Friday’s announcement of his close resignation, which Abe attributed to his health, was wonderful, but it also caused a sense of déja vu in many who saw him resign in 2007 due to the worsening of his illness, ulcerative colitis, his first term as director. country.
The 65-year-old man asked for his resignation a few days after the prime minister with the most years in office in terms of consecutive days in office. Bless you.
“This will replace the political landscape in Japan,” said Jun Azumi, business leader of the Diet of Japan’s main democratic constitutional opposition party. “This is the ultimate occasion in a decade. “
Since Abe returned to force in 2012, Japan has enjoyed years of political stability backed by a series of election victories that political experts characterize the fractured opposition than the specific policies of Abe and his Party. Liberal Democrat.
His strong base of strength has also made him a familiar face among world leaders, U. S. President Donald Trump, with whom Abe has forged close ties.
But in recent months, Abe had faced war after being criticized for his handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
“The policy is about the number of days a user has remained in power, but what has been achieved,” Abe told reporters Monday as he turned 2,799 days as a leader, the longest era recorded.
Abe’s current term as LDP president, and prime minister, would expire in September 2021 and he had indicated that he would not seek another term.
Critics say Abe has completed little despite a record term.
“He tried to build a legacy (which would characterize his mandate), but the legacy will be the length of his tenure,” said Hitoshi Komiya, a professor of Japanese fashion political history at Tokyo’s Aoyama Gakuin University.
At a press conference to announce his resignation on Friday, Abe did not say who he thought would succeed him, only said that it was up to the PLD to decide, that the ruling party will hold leadership elections in September to decide his successor.
Several LDP lawmakers have been nominated as potential candidates, including former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who is now the party’s political leader, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Abe’s critic, and cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga.
As Komiya suggested, Abe leaves with a list of un cultivated goals: to amend the Constitution for the first time since its enactment after World War II and to make the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games a good fortune in the summer of 2021 after a one-year postponement due to coronavirus.
No major progress has been made in resolving the challenge of kidnapping Japanese citizens across North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, which Abe said was “heartbreaking” because it had made it a priority.
The economy is at a critical juncture, with a real annualized contraction of 27. 8% in the April-June quarter, the biggest drop recorded, due to the pandemic, casting doubts about the years of its Abenomics policy combined with great flexibility across the Bank. . Japan.
After equipping Japan’s youngest prime minister in 2006, Abe resigned the following year, which raised physical fitness issues, marking the beginning of a volatile era of “revolving doors” policy, as the country saw several prime ministers come and go.
Public discontent with the LDP grew as the two prime ministers who followed Abe, Yasuo Fukuda and Taro Aso, resigned after serving only about a year each, as the economy faltered with the global monetary crisis following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. 2008.
Approximately decades of uninterrupted LDP rule came to an end in 2009 after Japan’s then-Democratic Party won a historic victory in the general election.
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