Japan’s agriculture minister resigned yesterday in a widening scandal over rice contaminated with mold and pesticide that was sold as food for thousands of people, including schoolchildren and nursing home patients.
Seiichi Ota’s departure only seven weeks after he took office was a further embarrassment to the teetering government of Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who announced recently his own resignation amid a parliamentary stalemate.
“I met with Prime Minister Fukuda and told him my decision to resign, considering the seriousness of the tainted rice problem for society,” Ota said.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura will take over as interim farm minister, the government said.
Japanese consumers have been horrified in recent weeks over the discovery that contaminated rice intended for industrial uses such as the manufacture of glue had been distributed instead as food to thousands of people.
The rice, imported from China, Vietnam and the US, was shipped to food companies, schools, day-care centers and nursing homes, the government said.
News reports said it was also discovered in rice balls sold at convenience stores.
“We deeply regret causing worries over food safety. We recognize that this is a very serious situation,” Machimura said.
The rice was tainted with the pesticide methamidophos at concentrations that exceeded government regulations but were too low to threaten anyone’s health, officials said.
There have been no reports of anyone getting sick from the rice.
The discovery is the latest in a string of food scandals including the false labeling of meat, vegetables and sweets, and Chinese-made dumplings that sickened at least 10 people in Japan.
Ota’s resignation comes just days before the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) election on Monday to choose a new president. The winner is expected to be elected by parliament to succeed Fukuda two days later.
Japan’s top opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, said the resignation was an attempt by the ruling party to halt damage from the scandal before calling parliamentary elections, possibly later this year.
The LDP “must have figured they cannot win elections” without firing Ota, DPJ Secretary-General Yukio Hatoyama told reporters.
The five candidates running to replace Fukuda were split yesterday on whether elections for parliament should be held soon as has been widely predicted.
In their final major speaking engagement before the party selects its new president, the five were hesitant to comment on when broader elections for parliament should be held.
Polls indicate many voters want such elections so that they can have more of a say in who leads the country, and it had been widely reported in Japan that an election could be called as early as Oct. 26.
But Taro Aso, the front-runner in the party leadership race, said the issue remained fluid.
“None of us has said that date,” Aso said.
One of Aso’s opponents, Nobuteru Ishihara, said that elections should be held “as soon as possible.” The other three stressed the importance of finishing up government business, including passing a budget, as high priorities in deciding when to hold the vote.
On another sensitive topic, the candidates had different opinions on whether it would be appropriate for them to visit the Yasukuni shrine while in office.
Visits to the shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead, have been controversial because of the shrine’s association with Japan’s pre-1945 militarism.
News of sitting prime ministers worshipping at the shrine usually bring protests from China and Korea.
Ishihara said he would like to visit, because he has a relative enshrined there.
Aso, who is seen by many as a hawk, was vague in his response, but Kaoru Yosano said flatly he would not go.
Former defense ministers Yuriko Koike and Shigeru Ishiba did not explicitly answer one way or the other, but said it was important to create an atmosphere in which the emperor can visit the shrine.
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