The widow of late Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi said her husband was able to express himself just after he was admitted to a Tokyo hospital in April, according to the latest edition of the monthly magazine Bungei Shunju, due out today.
"My husband often uttered, 'I want to get up,' " Chizuko Obuchi wrote in the magazine, giving details of her husband's physical condition on the evening of April 2.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Mikio Aoki claimed on April 3 that on the evening of April 2, Obuchi had asked him to serve as acting prime minister.