Bizarre remark and confusing backtracking lose politician his job in less than a week.

Right now, there’s no bigger issue among consumers in Japan than the gigantic increases in the price of rice. Though it’s an essential staple food within the Japanese diet, and especially crucial for households looking to stretch their food budgets, the price of rice has nearly doubled within the past year.

With Japan being a free market economy, the government can’t just step in and dictate what price rice will be sold at, so this isn’t an easy issue to resolve. Nonetheless, the people of Japan have been looking to political leaders for some sort of relief plan, or at the bare minimum a sign that politicians are aware of and empathize with their plight. So it was very poor timing last Sunday when Taku Eto, Japan’s Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, was at a fundraising party and said “I’ve never purchased rice. Honestly.” He then managed to dig himself into an even deeper hole by saying the reason he doesn’t need to buy rice is because political supporters give him so many bags of it that he can’t eat it all, and has so much surplus that he could sell it.

Even setting aside the question of how legal it is for one of the highest-ranking government officials in the country to be getting bags of food from people who no doubt want political favors in return, and whether it would be legal to sell his leftovers for profit, people were shocked. Having never, not even once, gone to the grocery store to buy Japan’s representative agricultural product seems like something that should disqualify you from being in charge of the entire country’s agriculture, and it turns out that it does, as Eto has now resigned.

Following the swift backlash to his fundraiser comments, Eto, who’s a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, held a press conference the following day in which he said that he’d overstated how much rice he had stockpiled at home, and also that he actually does buy rice regularly, while confusingly also saying that he wasn’t retracting his initial comments. At a House of Councilors Budget Committee later that day, he then said that he had retracted his initial statement during the press conference, and added that he’d just purchased rice a week ago.

Taken together, Eto’s statements show a lack of life experience, empathy, and/or basic communication skills, none of which are things you want to find shortages of in someone whose actions and decisions have a significant influence on the population’s well-being. With opposition party politicians now openly questioning Eto’s qualifications and considering banding together to submit a motion of no confidence against him, on Wednesday morning, three days after making his fundraiser comments, the embattled minister went to the private residence of prime minister Shigeru Ishiba.

▼ It’s essentially the politician version of being called to the principal’s office.

At the meeting, Eto offered his resignation, effective immediately. “With the people of our country currently struggling with rising prices, the remarks I made were grossly inappropriate for the minister in charge [of responding to the situation]. I deeply apologize to the people of the nation,” Eto said during a press conference after stepping down from his position, adding “I came to think that I am perhaps not the appropriate person to continue in the top position.”

Eto’s replacement, another member of the Liberal Democratic Party, has already been appointed. Shinjiro Koizumi, son of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, has taken over the role. The younger Koizumi’s credentials include serving as Minister of the Environment from 2019 to 2021, and hopefully also having bought rice at some point in his life.

Source: NHK News Web (1, 2)
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