Japan’s governing party on Monday anointed Yoshihide Suga, the current chief cabinet secretary, as its choice for the next prime minister, settling on what it saw as a safe pair of hands to grapple with the country’s many economic and strategic challenges.
Two weeks after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he was stepping down because of ill health, Mr. Suga was overwhelmingly elected as leader of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party during a conclave of members of Parliament and select delegates at a luxury hotel in central Tokyo.
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The party handily controls Parliament, virtually guaranteeing that Mr. Suga, 71, will be elected prime minister this week during a special session of the legislature.
“Due to his illness, the prime minister has had to step down midcourse. However, we cannot allow a political vacuum as the nation faces the crisis of the coronavirus’s spread,” Mr. Suga said in a brief speech after the vote tally was announced.
“I recognize that it is my duty to continue to advance the framework pushed forward by Prime Minister Abe so that we can overcome this crisis,” he added.
Monday’s vote put the party’s imprimatur on a decision that had been made not by its broad rank and file, but in Tokyo’s back rooms by its political elite, perhaps well before Mr. Abe had even decided to resign late last month after a record-long tenure in office.
Mr. Suga became the odds-on favorite to succeed Mr. Abe not long after the prime minister’s announcement. A path was cleared for him inside the party when his most serious competitor, Taro Aso, the deputy prime minister and finance minister and a former prime minister himself, said he would not stand for election.
Mr. Aso, a sharp-elbowed political boss with a history of hair-raising gaffes, controls one of several major factions within the party. His decision to stand aside for Mr. Suga raised suspicions that the move was part of a quid pro quo that would grant him some control over choosing the new cabinet.
