Expected or not, uncertainty or not, Abe, who on Aug. 24, the same day he revisited the hospital for the second time in a week, became the nation's longest-serving leader with the most consecutive days in office at 2,799, told the nation on Friday that his time at the helm had come.
He said that the same intestinal disease that abruptly curtailed his first tenure as prime minister in 2007, having only entered office in late September 2006, had struck again with a vengeance, to the extent that, as he put it, it had become hard for him to make "sound judgements due to illness" and making way for a new leader was the best, if not only way forward.
Abe's resignation, while not being an insurmountable problem for the ruling camp, does pose some uncertainties ahead and poignant questions more immediately, with the main one being who will succeed Abe as the nation's leader. A question Abe repeatedly declined to answer during the press conference on Friday.
"The big question here is how they decide his successor," said Tomoaki Iwai, a political science professor at Nihon University.
But while speculation is now rife among political observers as to who will replace Abe, there is no speculation that the new leader will have their work cut out for them as Abe's departure comes at a crucial time and with major policy initiatives, those of Abe himself and the ruling LDP, left up in the air and unfulfilled.
The most pressing being the fact that Japan is in the middle of battling the novel coronavirus pandemic and the nation losing its leader during this major global crisis is less than helpful.
【国际英语资讯:Abes shock resignation presents uncertainties for Japan】相关文章:
最新
2020-09-15
2020-09-15
2020-09-15
2020-09-15
2020-09-15
2020-09-15