The selection panel to choose the next president of the Tokyo Games organizing committee decided on Wednesday to ask Olympic minister Seiko Hashimoto to take on the post, according to sources.
The eight-person selection panel, made up of four women and four men, has been in the process of choosing a candidate to replace Yoshiro Mori, the former prime minister who has announced his intention to resign as president of the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games after making remarks widely seen as discriminatory against women.
The panel chaired by Fujio Mitarai, honorary president of the organizing committee, held a meeting behind closed doors on Wednesday for the second consecutive day, when it decided on Hashimoto.
Hashimoto participated in seven Olympics, winter and summer, as a speed skater and a cyclist, winning a bronze medal in the 1992 Albertville Olympics in the 1,500-meter speed skate. She was first elected to the House of Councillors in 1995.
After the panel selects a candidate, it will confirm if the person has the desire to assume the post of president, then recommend that person to the organizing committee's executive board.
Since Hashimoto is not a member of the executive board, if she agrees to take on the role, organizing committee councillors will hold a meeting to appoint her as a new board member before an executive board resolution is made to install her as president.
According to the organizing committee's articles of incorporation, whether for executive board members or councillors, five days' advance notice needs to be given before a meeting is held. Organizing committee Director General Toshiro Muto said, however, that an exception stipulating that a meeting can be held when agreed upon by all members will be applied so that the new president can be named as soon as possible.
Muto said Mitarai proposed creating selection criteria at Tuesday's first meeting and members discussed what they should focus on in selecting the candidate.
The five criteria were then posted on the Tokyo 2020 website and include: "Deep understanding of the principles of the Tokyo 2020 Games and the Olympic Charter, including gender equality, diversity and inclusion; ability to actualise them during the Games and as keystones of the Tokyo 2020 legacy" and "Experience on the global stage; international profile and sense of awareness."
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