{"id":37256,"date":"2021-09-23T21:34:40","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T12:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/sep\/23\/race-become-japan-next-pm-too-close-to-call-election"},"modified":"2021-09-23T21:34:40","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T12:34:40","slug":"race-to-become-japans-next-pm-too-close-to-call-days-before-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=37256","title":{"rendered":"Race to become Japan\u2019s next PM too close to call days before vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Contest to lead ruling party and country appears to be two-horse race between Taro Kono and Fumio Kishida<\/p>\n<p>The race to become leader of Japan\u2019s ruling party and the next prime minister is too close to call ahead of next week\u2019s party election. It is a rare moment of uncertainty after almost a decade during which Shinz\u014d<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2012\/dec\/16\/japanese-election-shinzo-aide-redemption\"> Abe<\/a> became the country\u2019s longest-serving prime minister until he was replaced last year by his close ally <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/sep\/14\/yoshihide-suga-the-farmers-son-set-to-be-japans-next-pm\">Yoshihide Suga<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>When Abe abruptly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/aug\/28\/shinzo-abe-to-publicly-address-concerns-about-his-health\">announced his resignation<\/a> last August, citing the recurrence of a chronic health problem, the identity of his successor was never in doubt. As Abe\u2019s chief cabinet secretary for almost eight years, Suga had proved a loyal lieutenant, perfecting the role of taciturn spokesperson in his daily encounters with the media.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/sep\/23\/race-become-japan-next-pm-too-close-to-call-election\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Contest to lead ruling party and country appears to be two-horse race between Taro Kono and Fumio KishidaThe race to become leader of Japan\u2019s ruling party and the next prime minister is too close to call ahead of next week\u2019s party election. It is a rar&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,88,638,42,1678],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-japan","category-shinzo-abe","category-world-news","category-yoshihide-suga"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37257,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37256\/revisions\/37257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}