Justice Minister Minoru Yanagida, one of Japan's top government officials, has acceded to pressure to resign over a joke he made about his job being easy. Yanagida had said that speaking before Parliament was easy because he only had to use one of two answers to every questions: "I won't comment on individual cases," or, "I'm acting in accordance with the law and the evidence."
Yanagida had taken office only two and a half months earlier. The BBC describes his resignation as part of the ruling party's crumbling popularity due to the poor economy:
Plenty of Japanese politicians have been felled by gaffes before, says the BBC's Roland Buerk in Toyko, including a tourism minister who resigned just four days into his job for saying the Japanese did not like foreigners.A certain tendency for Japanese government officials to resign under the slightest pressure predates the country's recent economic downturn. There are a number of theories as to how this tendency developed, but oft-cited explanations include the inherent frailty of Japan's near-single-party system and a political culture that is unusually sensitive to personal scandal.
But the latest resignation comes at a bad time for the prime minister, adds our correspondent.
There is widespread public discontent with the struggling economy.
Falling support for the centre-left government has complicated efforts to enact the crucial $61bn (£38bn) stimulus package, which the government hopes will stimulate the economy.
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