If Japan wants the Tokyo Olympics to be remembered for anything other than its perseverance over COVID-19, Yoshiro Mori had to go. That it took the former Japanese prime minister so long to depart speaks to the enduring legacy of old-style machine politics, and how ill-suited it is for the modern world.
As head of the Olympic organizing committee, Mori had been under fire since his sexist remarks last week, when he disparaged women for talking too much in meetings. He resigned Friday. While the writing may have been on the wall, Mori clung on — much as he did to the post of prime minister around the turn of the century, long after it was clear his leadership was toxic for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. He was a symptom of decay within the LDP, which was voted out for the first time later that decade.
Mori, 83, is a holdover from the years when smoke-filled rooms of men from one party made critical decisions. Rapid economic growth in the decades after World War II shielded this kind of patriarchal governance from too much sunlight. But the international uproar that followed Mori's recent comments led to a rebellion from Olympics sponsors, global corporations with customers and profiles that go way beyond the salons of Tokyo. For Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who is struggling with a collapse in popularity, a weakening economy and a spike in coronavirus infections, Mori was a problem he must have been eager to shed.