Yoshihide Suga, Shinzo Abe's closest aide, has been elected by the ruling party on Sep. 14, 2020 to become Japan's next prime minister.

Suga wins

Former PM Shinzo Abe stepped down on Aug. 28 citing his ailing health issues, which took many political insiders in Japan by surprise.

Suga, who ran against former foreign affairs minister Fumio Kishida and former defense minister Shigeru Ishiba, won the party election with 377 votes, while the latter two garnered 89 and 68 votes respectively, according to Kyodo.

Suga's win came without surprise, being the frontrunner to succeed Abe as his right-hand man and the Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan.

However, Suga's term as prime minister and the president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will be rather limited, as a national election must be held by October 2021 at the end of Abe's current three-year term.

Often seen as a self-made politician, Suga was born to a family of farmers in Akita Prefecture, and had no backing from a political faction when he first entered Japanese politics to run for the Yokohama City Council in 1987.

This is uncharacteristic from many elite politicians in Japan, including Abe himself, whose father was a foreign minister, and is related to two former prime ministers of Japan.

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Top image via Getty