Successive resignations of two female Cabinet members dealt a blow to the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. But should the opposition camp be credited for its attack that forced them to step down or did the administration manage to minimize the impact by counteracting quickly?
On Oct. 21, a day after the two submitted resignations, Yoshitada Konoike, a veteran Upper House member of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party, teased opposition legislators by saying that more damage could have been done to Abe if the opposition camp had set the stage for one minister to step down first and delayed the action on the other until, say, next spring, rather than forcing both to resign simultaneously.
Abe accepted the resignations of Yuko Obuchi and Midori Matsushima from their respective portfolios at the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade, and the Ministry of Justice (after Obuchi was accused of not keeping accurate records of her political funds and Matsushima was alleged to have violated the election law by distributing paper fans with her slogans printed on them in her constituency).