Officials at the prime minister's office in Tokyo gave Japan's longest-serving PM Shinzo Abe a warm send off as he left the office for the last time. Mr Abe announced his resignation last month due to health problems. Latest on this story here:
"Now I'm handing the baton to new party leader Suga," Mr Abe said after the vote."We can count on him."Mr Suga said his top priorities are fighting the coronavirus and turning around a Japanese economy battered by the pandemic.The 65-year-old is suffering with ulcerative colitis - a long-term condition where the bowel becomes inflamed - and was hospitalised twice in a week.
Despite his low-key image as Mr Abe's right-hand man, Mr Suga is known for his iron-fist approach to getting jobs done as a policy coordinator and influencing bureaucrats by using the centralised power of the prime minister's office.Mr Suga says he is a reformist and that he has worked to achieve policies by breaking territorial barriers of bureaucracy.
He has credited himself for those efforts in achieving a booming foreign tourism industry in Japan, lowering mobile phone bills and bolstering agricultural exports. In addition to the coronavirus and the economic fallout, Mr Suga stands to inherit several other challenges, including China, which continues its assertive actions in the East China Sea.
He also will have to decide what to do with the Tokyo Olympics, which were pushed back to next summer due to the coronavirus.
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