NORTH ASIA 12
JAPAN
Japan’s new PM promises to push for IRs The man who will replace Shinzo Abe as prime minister of Japan has promised he will push ahead with the development of IRs in the country, saying they are indispensable for the country’s tourism development.
“A
lthough people tend to focus only on the casinos, the government intendstopromoteIRsasplaceswith various facilities and hotels where families can come and stay during international conferences,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga recently told a local TV station. However, Suga gave no update on the planned IR timeline, which has already slipped as a result of Covid-19 and he may have to face up to a cold, hard, dose of reality when it comes to what is practical. On the face of it, having Suga as Abe’s replacement is the best outcome for those who advocate IR development in Japan. Suga has been Abe’s right-hand man for almost eight years and has personally overseen a significant portion of the government policymaking on the issue. Were another one of the viable ruling party candidates to have come out on top, they all would have been generally favorably disposed to IR development, but none of them would have had the same “skin in the game” that Suga does. Moreover, it is widely believed—though the direct public evidence is lacking—that it was Suga who pushed Yokohama Mayor Fumiko Hayashi into the IR race at considerable expense to her own political reputation within the local community. Suga is a Kanagawa-based lawmaker and appears to strongly desire that his local area should host one of the first IRs in the nation. As prime minister, however, he is going to have to balance his own pro-IR inclination against a number of sobering political and practical factors that all argue for him to delay the development timeline. While Suga is anticipated to win his Liberal Democratic Party presidential election in a decisive fashion, his emergence as the nation’s leader will have been very much an insider’s affair, arranged by a handful of ruling party grandees with no real public input. In fact, the polls show clearly that the general public prefers his rival Shigeru Ishiba by a wide margin.
Asia Gaming Briefings | September 2020
While it can be expected that, once he is installed as prime minister in mid-September, his poll numbers will rise significantly as the public looks hopefully upon their new national leader, the initial honeymoon will include a lot of very soft support that could easily evaporate. Prime Minister Suga will be obligated to
call a new general election by October 2021—a little over a year from now—and his priority, should he wish to avoid the fate of becoming just a forgettable caretaker leader, will be to curry support with the public to see him past that first major hurdle. Should he survive beyond that stage, and
