This is the end of an era.
I feel as though he’s been the leader of Japan forever.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan said on Friday that he was resigning because of ill health, thrusting his country, amid a global pandemic, into a new period of political uncertainty after a record-setting tenure that had provided unaccustomed stability at the top.
Mr. Abe, 65, has been prime minister for nearly eight years, a significant feat in a country that had seen six prime ministers in the six years before he took office in 2012. During his tenure, he oversaw Japan’s recovery from a devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, restored a semblance of economic health and curried favor with an unpredictable American president, Donald J. Trump.
Yet despite his long hold on power — his second stint as prime minister, having held the post in 2006-7 — Mr. Abe failed to reach some of his signature goals. He was unable to revise the pacifist Constitution installed by postwar American occupiers, or to secure the return of contested islands claimed by both Japan and Russia so that the two countries could sign a peace treaty to officially end World War II.
Mr. Abe said during a news conference Friday evening that he had suffered a relapse of the bowel disease that led him to resign during his first stint in office. He said he wanted to make way for a new leader who could focus fully on tackling the challenges facing Japan, chiefly the coronavirus pandemic.
His conservative governing party, the Liberal Democratic Party, is expected to appoint an interim leader who will serve until the party can hold a leadership election, according to NHK, the public broadcaster. Mr. Abe’s term was set to expire in September 2021.
The leading candidates to replace Mr. Abe include Taro Aso, the long-serving deputy prime minister and a former prime minister; Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet secretary to Mr. Abe; Shigeru Ishiba, a former defense minister who once ran against Mr. Abe for party leader; Fumio Kishida, a former foreign minister; and Taro Kono, the current defense minister.
Mr. Abe said that party executives were finalizing plans for selecting a new leader.
I always had good feelings towards Abe. Though I think I have good feelings towards all Japanese, because they always give the impression of being clean and respectful.
Japan, along with South Korea, is the only country that is both “first world” and nonwhite.
Japan is one of the countries that avoided this insane and idiotic shutdown that the West tried to force on the whole world.
Furthermore, Abe was at the helm when Japan refused to have anything to do with this Western policy of flooding countries with low-IQ, violent, useless brown immigrants.
Instead, he encouraged the people to breed.
I trust they will get a new leader who continues with these intelligent policies and that this isn’t just a CIA plot to foment cultural revolution in Japan.
It’s probably a CIA plot.