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 after a record-long tenure, 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.
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.
Monday's vote put the party's imprimatur on a decision that had been made not by its broad rank and file, but was instead negotiated in the back rooms of Tokyo's political elite, perhaps well before Mr. Abe had even decided to resign late last month.
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 a former prime minister, said he would not stand for election.
