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Yoshihide Suga is now the longest-serving Chief Cabinet Secretary in Japan. Photo: Kyodo

Suga becomes longest-serving top government spokesman in Japan

Yoshihide Suga on Thursday became the longest-serving chief cabinet secretary in Japan with 1,290 days in office, surpassing Yasuo Fukuda, who served as the country’s top government spokesman for 1,289 days between 2000 and 2004.

Suga, 67, is the right-hand man to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and a key architect of the Abe government.

“When I became chief cabinet secretary, I had no idea I would work [in the role] this long,” Suga told a press conference on Thursday.

“I feel my personal role is to maintain an environment that allows all the prime minister’s plans to move forward,” he said.

Suga said his most difficult decisions were made during the 2013 Algerian hostage crisis in which 10 Japanese nationals were killed.

Suga, a House of Representatives lawmaker, served as internal affairs and communications minister in Abe’s first cabinet launched in 2006. He was also the Liberal Democratic Party’s acting secretary general before becoming chief cabinet secretary in 2012.

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