Welcome to FT.com. Please sign in to your account or register for free
Shoichi never had any intention of quitting his job. He liked being finance minister. And actually, he really was very good at it - at least on the days he could remember. He was definitely one of the more intelligent members of the Cabinet, he’d heard foreign reporters say that. Oh, except for that infernal reporter from The Economist, who had the nerve to write that he had found him in “erratic form” in his office, with his shirt unbuttoned to the waist - perhaps the man had meant “erotic?”
And anyway, what was wrong with saying that women have their “proper place” and their “own abilities” in, for example, “flower arranging, sewing, or cooking”?
Shoichi had worked long and hard to get to the position of finance minister, sitting through countless election rallies, making boring speeches, shaking hands along the way - and he only ever really fluffed his lines and fell about a few times. When he’d hit the - err, cough medicine — a bit too hard. Well, maybe more than a few times. He couldn’t remember really.
But this time was different. It was that long flight to Rome, and of course that slug of cough medicine - on top of that glass, or was it a bottle? Or two?, of nice Italian wine, and those pain killers - that really did it.
Damn those cameras. Unfair of them really to expect him to perform at a press conference. He’d genuinely thought the central bank governor was wrong and was only trying to correct him; and remind all those idiots about the level of Japanese interest rates. What’s a digit or two’s difference?
Anyway. It all ended badly - though not for his reported successor, Kaoru Yosano - who is known to be a moderate drinker. As Bloomberg reports on Tuesday:
Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said he will resign amid accusations he was drunk at a Group of Seven press conference, dealing a fresh blow to Prime Minister Taro Aso’s teetering government.
“I deeply apologize to the prime minister, the people and members of parliament for the significant trouble I caused,” Nakagawa, 55, told reporters in Tokyo today. Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Kaoru Yosano will replace him when he steps down, Kyodo News said, without citing where it got the information.
Aso’s popularity has plunged as lawmakers from both sides of parliament criticized his handling of the economic crisis and a series of scandals and misstatements drew public ire. Nakagawa’s departure comes as companies from Toyota Motor Corp. to Sony Corp. fire thousands of workers and the nation heads for its deepest recession since World War II.
“I would not be surprised if this folly signals the death- knell” for Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party, Kirby Daley, senior strategist and head of capital introductions at Newedge Group in Hong Kong. Nakagawa’s “unthinkable behavior, and the fact that the prime minister did not immediately call for his job, reduces his own fledgling credibility.”
Related links:
Japan’s real problem - to0 much cough medicine - FT Alphaville