Taro Kono, the political maverick who could be Japan’s next prime minister

The outspoken vaccine minister is favourite for the top job partly thanks to his large social media following and backing from young people

Japan’s straight-talking, social media-savvy minister for vaccines and reform, Taro Kono, is the frontrunner to become the country’s next leader. Seen as a maverick in Japan’s staid political world, Kono has set his sights on shaking up the nation’s entrenched bureaucracy.

Kono has used his platform on Twitter – where his Japanese account has nearly 2.4 million followers and his English-language one nearly 50,000 – to berate civil servants for working into the wee hours and holding late-night press conferences.

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source https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/08/taro-kono-the-political-maverick-who-could-be-japans-next-prime-minister

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