Opposition parties accused Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of favoring his political allies rather than making merit-based appointments in his Cabinet reshuffle Wednesday, while also questioning the timing of the announcement given that parts of Kanto are still recovering from Typhoon Faxai.
"It is a Cabinet favoring his close aides and friends," Tetsuro Fukuyama, secretary-general of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, said at a news conference.
Fukuyama also noted that hundreds of thousands of households in Chiba Prefecture were still facing power and water outages following the powerful typhoon that ripped through the metropolitan area earlier this week.