Agriculture Minister Matsuoka Buys the Farm （松岡が自殺した。）
In the “Last Word” appended to the most recent edition of TPR News, I asked:
What do you do when you’re an outrageous liar and everyone knows it,and you know everyone knows it, and they know that you know, etc.?
I went on to say that, if you were Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Toshikatsu Matsuoka, you would continue to lie and laugh as Prime Minister Abe continued to defend you, continued to claim you’d answered questions right after you’d refused to do so.
Well, there’s one more step you would take were you Matsuoka. The last one.
We here at TPR had called for Matsuoka to leave, but we didn’t think it would happen like it did. Shortly after noon today, Mr. Matsuoka was found in his government apartment by an aide. He was unconscious, having hanged himself, and died in hopital shortly thereafter, apparently without ever regaining consciousness.
From Nikkei:
Farm Minister Dies In Apparent Suicide, Dealing Heavy Blow To Abe Govt
TOKYO (Nikkei)–Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka died Monday at a Tokyo hospital after being found to have hanged himself in an apparent suicide, police said. He was 62.
The death of Matsuoka, who had been under fire for his dubious use of political funds, comes as a major blow to the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which is preparing for the upper house election scheduled for July.
Matsuoka came under fierce criticism when it was revealed that his funds management body booked utility costs as political expenses. Even some within his own ruling Liberal Democratic Party called for his resignation.
On the day of his death, the minister had talks with his secretary in his residence for Diet members in Tokyo’s Akasaka district until around 10 a.m. When Matsuoka failed to come out of his 11th floor room after the meeting, the secretary went back in to check on him, only to find the minister unconscious. The secretary and other staff members sent Matsuoka to the hospital, but efforts to resuscitate him failed.
Scandals plagued Matsuoka from the outset of his tenure as farm minister. When the accounting scandal came to light immediately after he took the post, Matsuoka denied any wrongdoing, saying, “The expenses were neither fictitious nor a cover for something else.” The prime minister repeatedly defended the embattled minister, saying at one point, “I see no problem.”
Earlier this month, Matsuoka came under suspicion for his possible involvement in bid rigging related to the government-affiliated Japan Green Resources Agency (J-Green), prompting some fellow LDP lawmakers to call for his resignation.
Matsuoka was elected to the lower house six times from the third electoral district of Kumamoto Prefecture on the southern Japanese main island of Kyushu. He became a cabinet member for the first time with his appointment as farm minister by Abe in September 2006.
(The Nikkei Monday evening edition)
The suicide of any high profile politician, especially one beset by scandal for six months, opens the door to a great deal of speculation, not least about the timing of his suicide, the role political opportunity played in it, how it will help or hinder the Prime Minister and the LDP or the opposition DPJ, and how and why Matsuoka held on and retained Abe’s support for so long after it became clear he was lying.
If you’re into that sort of thing, the next Seijigiri will be out earlier than usual - the domestic political scene will see a flurry of activity and the DPJ will have to toe the line between electioneering and being seen as insensitive. Most immediately, who will Abe apoint as Farm Minister? Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki has already announced the speedy naming of a replacement.
Mr. Matsuoka was a liar and a crook, who insisted on dragging his scandal out when caught. This strategy brought some political gain to his party, but not to his country and, in the end, apparently not to his conscience, either.
To his family, we here at TPR extend our condolences - it is never the guilty who suffer, but those closest to him have gotten no reprieve.
Messrs. Honma and Sata, guilty of similar improprieties, resigned long ago. Let’s hope Mr. Ibuki, the highest-ranking of the remaining huddle of political fund report-fudgers, steps down less melodramatically, for everyone’s sake.
Related Posts:
- Farm Minister Endo Resigns: Abe Goes 0 for 3
- Ai Iijima R.I.P.
- Seijigiri #26 - North Koreans Defect to the Land of Matsuoka and ‘Clean Earth 50′
- Seijigiri #25 - Abe, Pensions, Farmers, the Election, and the LDP Platform
- Cabinet resignations galore, the upcoming Diet session, and more. Don’t eat the dolphin: TPR News for Saturday, September 8, 2007
