Embattled Japanese farm minister Kazuo Yana said Wednesday he has decided to resign over controversies surrounding his past behavior in his constituency, in a major blow to her government.
Yana said he had tendered his resignation to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, becoming the first Cabinet member to step down since the premier reshuffled her Cabinet in mid-September.
“I can no longer afford to disrupt parliamentary deliberations and agricultural administration,” Yana told reporters at the prime minister’s office in Tokyo after meeting with Takaichi.
Yana, a sixth-term House of Representatives member from Takaichi’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, is known as her right-hand man on agricultural policy.
The resignation marks a setback for the prime minister, who is poised to mark a year in office later this month. Shortly before the announcement, opposition lawmakers threatened to submit a censure motion against Yana in the Senate, the upper house of Japan’s parliament.
Yana has faced criticism following media reports since late September that he told supporters in his constituency in May that road budgets had been drastically cut for two municipalities whose mayors supported his rival in the February general election.
