Why is Japan’s Yoshihide Suga the latest prime minister to avoid living at the official residence? It’s a spooky story

The issue is debated every couple of years, and comes down to persistent rumours of ghosts

The residence is the site of two bloody coup attempts in the 1930s, and various premiers have reported supernatural incidents, with one even arranging an exorcism

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Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga still lives in his cramped quarters at the Diet members’ dormitory. Photo: EPA

Published: 3:18pm, 15 Mar 2021Updated: 3:24pm, 15 Mar 2021

Every couple of years, there are reports on why Japan’s prime minister refuses to live in the official residence. Last week saw the issue being discussed again in Japanese media, and every time it comes up, so does the same answer: rumours of ghosts.

Completed in April 2002, the prime minister’s residence – known as the Sori Kotei – is a spacious six-floor structure adjacent to the National Diet Building. But since being elected in a parliamentary vote in September last year, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has remained in the cramped quarters at the Diet members’ dormitory to which he has been entitled for the past 25 years.

During a February debate in the Diet, Yoshihiko Noda of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan demanded to know why Suga had not yet moved into the residence.

Noda – who was prime minister from 2011 to 2012, and the last Japanese premier to live at the residence – put the question to Suga two days after a magnitude 7.3 earthquake brought trains to a stop and caused structural damage in northeast Japan, pointing out that it had taken Suga 20 minutes to reach the official residence to chair an emergency meeting.

“What would happen if there was an earthquake directly beneath Tokyo?” Noda asked. “The traffic would probably be impassable. It would take more than 20 minutes. But to walk from the prime minister’s residence to the office would take zero minutes.

“Even though it sits empty, the annual maintenance and upkeep comes to Y160 million [US$1.47 million]. I cannot understand why you do not move in.”

Former prime minister Shinzo Abe during an April 2020 press conference at the official residence. Photo: Reuters