Arata Takebe seems to take over as Japan’s farm minister after Kazuo Yana exits

Kazuo Yana resigned as Japan’s minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries on Wednesday evening, October 14, and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi chose Arata Takebe to replace him the next morning, according to the Prime Minister’s Office and Japanese news agencies. “He submitted his letter of resignation today, and I accepted it,” Takaichi told reporters on Wednesday, in the office’s provisional English translation of her press conference. NHK World posted the earliest report of the resignation this desk found, at 8:11 p.m. Japan time (4:11 AM PT Wednesday). Nikkei and the Yomiuri Shimbun say Takebe takes office formally through an attestation ceremony at the Imperial Palace; identical reports in Niigata Nippo and Fukushima Minyu say that ceremony ended at 6:01 p.m. Thursday Japan time (2:01 AM PT), and a Jiji Press flash says the government had set it for 5:30 p.m.

In her opening statement, Takaichi said Yana told her that “he could no longer allow the matter to disrupt Diet deliberations and wished to avoid a situation in which he would remain unable to concentrate on agricultural, forestry and fisheries administration,” according to the office’s translation. She said she, too, could not overlook that situation, and cited the consumption tax and benefit bill, the response to the situation in the Middle East and the coming budget as challenges the government must answer. Asked about her own role, she said: “Responsibility for his appointment rests, of course, with me as Prime Minister. I take my responsibility for the appointment very seriously, given that the situation has resulted in a minister’s resignation.” The agencies render that line differently: Kyodo quotes her as taking “very seriously my responsibility for appointing a Cabinet minister who went on to resign,” and NHK World as saying “I take my responsibility for having appointed him very seriously.”

The accounts differ on who made the call. In the transcript, an Asahi Shimbun reporter asks whether the resignation came entirely from Yana himself, and Takaichi answers, “That is correct,” adding that she had arranged to meet him that evening to hear his explanation again. Asked whether she had asked him to resign at any point, she said: “Not at all. He submitted his resignation today, and I accepted it.” NHK World quotes Yana telling reporters, “I cannot allow this to cause any further disruption to Diet deliberations,” and, “Therefore, I made the decision myself.” Kyodo, by contrast, writes that Takaichi “effectively dismissed” her farm minister, and Kyodo’s Thursday story says opposition parties had prepared to submit a censure motion against him in the upper house, where the ruling coalition lacks a majority. The short item in Niigata Nippo and Fukushima Minyu uses the Japanese word kōtetsu, a term for removing an official from a post, for Yana’s exit (this desk’s reading).

The trouble started with remarks about road money. NHK World says Yana told a gathering in his home prefecture of Tochigi in May, before he joined the Cabinet in September, that he had significantly cut the road budgets of two municipalities led by mayors who did not support him politically. Kyodo says the reports, which its Thursday story dates from late September, had him saying road budgets got drastically cut for two municipalities in his constituency whose leaders did not back him in the February general election. Both agencies say he retracted the remarks and apologized while denying that he pushed the land ministry to make cuts; Kyodo adds that he has largely acknowledged making them. In the transcript, Takaichi says the remarks came in his local district before he became a minister and that she “had no way of knowing about them”; she says she strongly reprimanded him after he first described them only as “expressions that could have caused misunderstanding.” Kyodo quotes Yuichiro Tamaki, head of the opposition Democratic Party for the People, as urging continued accountability because “suspicions that politicians can intervene and change the allocation of funds at their will have not disappeared.”

A second question surfaced this week. Kyodo says the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun reported last week that Yana had his supporters carried by shuttle bus for free during past lower house election campaigns, which Kyodo describes as possibly in violation of the Public Offices Election Act; NHK World says concerns arose that he may have violated that law and that the opposition has argued the arrangement may have broken it. On Tuesday, Kyodo says, Yana told a lower house session that his side made “no provision of benefits or donations” and that his camp had handled the matter “appropriately in accordance with the law”; on Wednesday he said only that staff might have asked “how to count” the bus costs in campaign finance records, which Kyodo reads as implying they may not have asked the local electoral committee about legality. Takaichi said the relevant authorities must judge the legality, Kyodo reports, and a Jiji Press flash says she told reporters she could not say at this point whether the arrangement broke the law (this desk’s translation). In the transcript, she says she had planned to hear his explanation again “particularly as there had been further media reports,” and that she did not believe he had “yet provided an explanation sufficient to gain a full understanding of the matter, including on my part.” No court, prosecutor or election-board finding on the buses appears in the sources this desk read.

Takaichi met Takebe at her office on Thursday morning, according to Nikkei and the Yomiuri. Kyodo says she cited his policy expertise and parliamentary experience and told reporters she expects he “will be able to hit the ground running, including in handling Diet affairs”; Jiji Press renders the same remark as a belief that he could contribute immediately. Takebe told reporters he intends to “draw fully on the experience and knowledge I have accumulated and devote myself wholeheartedly to the job,” in Kyodo’s translation, while Jiji quotes him: “Agricultural administration is at a critical juncture, and I will fulfill the heavy responsibilities of the post.” Jiji adds that he spoke of the need for policies that ensure fairness. Kyodo says Takebe served as senior vice farm minister under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and that his father, former lawmaker Tsutomu Takebe, served as farm minister and LDP secretary general under Junichiro Koizumi; the Yomiuri gives his seat as Hokkaido’s 12th district and says Takaichi told him to push food technology and stronger farm supply capacity (this desk’s translation).

The change lands in the middle of a legislative push. Kyodo says the government wants a bill to temporarily cut the consumption tax passed during a 69-day extraordinary Diet session that runs through December 12, and that opposition members of the upper house had refused to hold meetings of its agriculture, forestry and fisheries committee while Yana stayed in office. On Thursday, Kyodo says, the LDP and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan reached a preliminary agreement to hold upper house Budget Committee sessions on Friday and Monday, reducing the risk of delays to a planned lower house session on the consumption tax bill on Tuesday. Kyodo calls Yana Takaichi’s right-hand man on agricultural policy, notes that the party disciplined him over the political funds scandal that surfaced in late 2023, and says his exit comes about a week before Takaichi marks one year in office; the Yomiuri calls it the first scandal-driven Cabinet change since her Cabinet took office last October (this desk’s translation).

Seems News reading note: the resignation, its acceptance and the successor rest on Takaichi’s own words in the Prime Minister’s Office transcript and on reports from NHK, Kyodo, Jiji, Nikkei and the Yomiuri. The claim that Yana chose to go rests on Takaichi and Yana; Kyodo calls the move an effective dismissal. The road-budget remarks rest on media reports that Yana has largely acknowledged, by Kyodo’s account; the bus-ride question rests on a magazine report and Diet questioning, and no source this desk read reports any ruling on its legality. English quotes from Japanese speakers come in each outlet’s own translation, and they differ. Watch for Takebe’s first news conference as minister, any censure move or committee standoff in the upper house, and Tuesday’s lower house session on the consumption tax bill.