Yoshihide Suga, on Monday, was elected as the new leader of Japan’s ruling party, making him all but certain to replace Shinzo Abe as the country’s next prime minister, reported AFP.

Chief cabinet secretary Suga easily won the vote, taking 377 of a total of 534 votes from Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers and regional representatives, against two rivals, Shigeru Ishiba and Fumio Kishida.

Abe announced his resignation due to health reasons.

71-year-old Suga serves as Chief Cabinet Secretary in the current administration and was widely expected to win.

He is considered a close ally of Mr Abe and likely to continue his predecessor’s policies.

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According to AFP, there will be another vote on Wednesday in parliament, where Suga is almost certain to be made prime minister because of the LDP’s majority.

Ishiba, who is popular with the Japanese public but less so within his own party, won just 68 votes, with Kishida, who was once considered Abe’s favoured successor, taking 89.

Abe, who smashed records as Japan’s longest-serving prime minister before being forced to resign after a recurrence of ulcerative colitis, declined to publicly endorse any candidate.

The son of a strawberry farmer, Suga was raised in Japan’s northern Akita region, and the issues of rural areas suffering depopulation are said to be among his top concerns.

But not much is known about his personal ideology, and he is generally viewed as an adherent of neither the LDP’s most hawkish nor its more reformist wings.

As prime minister, he will face a series of tough challenges, including containing the coronavirus and righting the world’s third-biggest economy, which was in recession even before the pandemic.