Why is Suga so determined to move forward with the Tokyo Olympics

At its lowest point in May, more than 80% of the Japanese public wanted to cancel or postpone the upcoming Olympics, almost no one in the country was vaccinated and medical experts lined up to call the games an unbearable risk to Covid-19.

Despite heavy pressure from Tokyo 2020, Japan has yet to come close to canceling the Olympics, according to government and organizing committee officials. Instead, they try to drop the clock and build an essential feeling around the games.

That determination to move forward has nothing to do with financial accounts, analysts said, but they do reflect a mix of electoral policies, a one-size-fits-all approach to China, and the practical calculations of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

There are growing signs that Suga’s political opinion was correct. The percentage of Japanese audiences who want to cancel games has dropped to 31 percent according to the regular NHK poll, and nearly two-thirds said the games should continue properly. audience limits.

“People are basically giving up on the games that are going on,” said political analyst Atsuo Ito and a former Liberal Democrat official in power. “If it happens, it will.”

According to Suga, a simple figure prevails in the calculations of the Olympic Games: four years have passed since the last general election in Japan and he will have to call another one by October 22nd. That one to survive as party leader, the LDP must do well in these elections.

Many of his allies believe that the best bet is a successful game. “Suga and the people around him believe that if the games happen, the Olympic fever will prevail,” said Takao Toshikawa, editor of the Tokyo Insideline political bulletin. “If the medal is fast in Japan, they want to call an election as soon as possible.”

With the Paralympics closing on Sept. 5, Suga hopes to reach out to the public almost immediately and hopes to drive the Olympic-feeling factor into another four years.

Some of Suga’s bureaucratic advisers see the Olympics as an election risk, Ito said, because the huge rise in coronavirus infections that can be traced in the games could become a damaging scandal.

The advice of epidemiologists, however, suggested that playing games was not so dangerous, at least not because 80% of those who travel to Japan will be vaccinated. The risk of hand home travel and social relationships are greater, but Tokyo 2020 organizers hope to control this by limiting the number of spectators in the venues.

Revocation poses its own political risks. Suga could have a short-term boost if he were seen as a decisive leader in protecting the country, but the election would have to compete as a man who has put years of effort and public money aside after trillions of yen in public money.

Many other political factors favor progress. The Tokyo Games are crucial to the legacy of Shinzo Abe, Suga’s former prime minister. Abe is still an LDP power broker and Suga needs his help.

Japanese leaders are also very aware The Winter Olympics will be held in Beijing In early 2022. A victorious game in China, eight months after a huge Japanese defeat, is a view that few LDP politicians want to see.

Suga has been betting for months that sentiment will change when voters receive Covid vaccines and after major delays Japanese expansion is finally picking up pace. The country provides more than 600,000 vaccines a day and aims to reach 1m this month. Between 30% and 40% of the country will have at least one dose by the time games begin.

A common theory in Japan is that the International Olympic Committee forces the country to host games. “We’re in a situation where we can’t even stop,” said Kaori Yamaguchi, a former judo champion and executive member of the Japan Olympic Committee, this month.

But lawyers say the IOC had limited leverage because Japan had little to lose economically as a result of the cancellation. “Most of the money Japan has put into infrastructure, hotels, the Olympics and the like, has been spent,” said Irwin Kishner of Herrick, Feinstein’s sports lawyer in New York.

After being delayed last year, Japan no longer expects much revenue from Tokyo 2020, and will lose most of what is left if it chooses to limit the number of viewers and return of ticket sales.

The COI, meanwhile, remains in line with the full revenue of its radio rights and live sponsors, which explains its sharp insistence that the games should have progressed “Armageddon banned” and that Tokyo remains in the Covid state of emergency. .

If the Tokyo 2020 organizers do not have the right to cancel the contract, the IOC will not have much resources if Japan is unable to close its borders and play games.

“How would the IOC pursue the Japanese government?” asked Nick White, a sports lawyer at Charles Russell Speechlys in London. “Even if he finds a way to sue, I think any court in his head would say that a government is in public health and has the right to impose restrictions.”

Fortunately for the KO, the interests of the Japanese Prime Minister have coincided with his own. Unless the coronavirus situation deteriorates significantly in the coming weeks, the Tokyo Olympic cauldron will be reopened on July 23rd.