Tokyo Governor says Olympics must happen in 2021

Japan has not seen an explosive coronavirus outbreak as suffered in some other places but a recent increase in cases in Tokyo, which accounts for more than a third of its more than 20,000 total, has fanned worries about a second wave of infections.

The 2020 Olympics were scheduled to start this month but were postponed because of the coronavirus. Koike has pledged to win public support for the Games, although a media survey showed a majority think they should be cancelled or postponed again. “I want to host them as a symbol of the world coming together to overcome this tough situation and of strengthened bonds among humankind,” Koike said. She declined to specify a deadline for deciding if the Games could go ahead. A media-savvy former television announcer who speaks English and Arabic, Koike is to many a paradox: a global thinker with a nationalist tinge; a political outsider who advanced with help from old-boy mentors, and a risk-taker who shied away from the big gamble of running for parliament in 2017 as head of her upstart “Party of Hope”. The party floundered after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called a snap election.

Instead, Koike stayed on as Tokyo governor and has won plaudits for her straight-talking handling of the COVID-19 outbreak in contrast to what critics called Abe’s clumsy response.

She was re-elected by a landslide last week, reigniting talk she has a shot at becoming Japan’s first woman prime minister.