Several members of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's cabinet, who lost their seats in last Sunday's lower house election, on Tuesday blamed Noda for their defeat.
Noda held a cabinet meeting in the morning at which he apologized to his ministers for the Democratic Party of Japan's heavy loss. Eight of them lost their seats in the election. However, after the meeting, a number of ministers held news conferences at which they criticized Noda.
Education Minister Makiko Tanaka, who on Monday said she would learn from the defeat and start all over again, was more blunt on Tuesday. She said the atmopshere at the cabinet meeting was like a funeral parlor, Fuji TV reported. Tanaka said Noda dissolved the lower house in desperation, despite the opposition of some ministers and rank-and-file party members. She called his decision egocentric and said she knew from the very beginning it would be suicidal for the party, Fuji TV reported.
Another defeated cabinet member, Finance Minister Koriki Jojima, also said Noda's decision was too hasty, while Postal Reform Minister Mikio Shimoji said that Noda should have waited until tax reform and budget bills were passed first before dissolving the lower house.
© Japan Today
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Graham DeShazo
I think these FORMER ministers should reread (or maybe just read) the constitution which says that the decision to dissolve the govt. is the sole decision of the PM.
I will always admire PM Noda for getting things done. He did not make the nuclear crisis, but he did a reasonably good (although to be sure there are outstanding issues) job of managing the issue. He got the hated, but necessary (because no other govt. in the last 30 years would deal with the issue and the can just could not be kicked down the road any farther) Consumption Tax passed. And he avoided a fiscal cliff as well as got a deal on lowering the total number of Diet members. To get some of this done, it was necessary to dissolve the Lower House and hold an election that he surely knew would be his downfall. People talk frequently about putting Country before Party. This man actually did it.
As for blaming their defeat on the PM, I liked what Okada said: "Every lawmaker is responsible for his or her reelection." In other words, "Shut up, Makiko."
Speaking of back-stabbing nut-jobs, she was is rare form yesterday. It takes a special kind of sociopath to smile with perfectly applied lipstick while gutting the man who brought her out of the political wilderness. She did a HORRIBLE job as Education minister picking a fight that was not immediately important (and which of course put all eyes on her) and then she had to back down to pressure. Of course it was all the fault of her subordinates, the media, blah blah blah. I have seen this movie before, and so too appearantly had the good citizens of Nagano who decided that not only would they vote for someone else, they would not even endow the wicked witch of the North with a backup spot on the purportional rep block.
Good-bye Makiko, unfortunately we knew you too well. Please continue your whine-fest elsewhere and refrain from letting the door hit your granny butt on the way out.
blue_monday
＠Graham DeShazo
plus one
Noda, and Kan before him were good men at a bad time. I dislike the prospect of paying more tax, but accept the need, to a degree.
Tanaka will probably now defect back to the LDP.
some14some
It's good they are not blaming the voters :)
Scrote
I had to laugh when Tanaka accused Noda of being egocentric after her grandstanding over approving the new universities.
I thought Noda made a good effort during the campaign and I wish he had been more forthright before. Voters here are usually keen to elect the son or daughter of a politician, so Ms Tanaka had an advantage to start with. Despite that, she still managed to lose. The person to blame can be found by looking in the mirror Ms Tanaka.
The passage
It's actually Hatoyama san's fault - as soon as he flipped on "at least out of Okinawa" it was all downhill. The voters will most likely regret this, with a return to the policies and spending of mone that led to the corrupt practices that were institutionalised in Tepco, etc. Kan and Noda fell on the sword for that.
602miko
win or lose thats a politics,
shanabelle
Makiko Tanaka and your dimwit husband (momentary Minister of Defence) ....both of you contributed so much to this electoral disaster! Now shut your mouth and go quietly, the door is that way.
edojin
Makiko Tanaka lost out on her own ... without Noda-san's help. Some of the other ministers' losses were a surprise, but not really when you consider they were targets of "assassins."
The LDP & New Komeito carried out perfect plots to upend these and many other Minshuto candidates. In my local election here in Tokyo, for example, New Komeito supported an LDP candidate in an "assassin" setup, with Komeito not fielding a candidate but fully supporting a novice LDP candidate, throwing behind it all the Soka-Gakkai votes possible. Minshuto's candidate, a former minister under the Kan administration, lost the popular vote but eked his way back into the Diet in the proportional representative section.
Meanwhile, in another section of Tokyo, the LDP put all its support behind the election of a powerful New Komeito member, who surprisingly lost in the previous election.
So ... the LDP & New Komeito worked in tandem to wrest away power from an already weakened Minshuto. Thus the defeat of so many former/present Minshuto ministers.
YuriOtani
Pulls out my violin and starts playing "My heart bleeds for you". You elected him head of your party and you will get to endure his mistakes. So live with it and dream about the next election.
Redcliff
The blame game starts when the party lost the election