Entangled in political and financial scandals, Kenya Akiba, the Japanese Minister of Reconstruction resigned on Tuesday.

This is the fourth departure in three months of a minister from Fumio Kishida's government, which is increasingly unpopular in the polls.

Weakened for several weeks, the minister admitted that his wife and mother had received funds for years from two political groups to which he is close, in the form of rent payments. 

He is also accused of illegally paying assistants during an election campaign in 2021.

Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Mio Sugita also resigned on Tuesday.

This far-right politician had been caught up in recent weeks by discriminatory comments she had made in the past about the LGBT + community and ethnic minorities in Japan.

An unpopular and weakened government

The Japanese government is considerably weakened by a series of scandals and cascading revelations since last summer on the links between many elected members of the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD, conservative right), the main ruling party led by the Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and the Unification Church, nicknamed "Moon Sect".

At the end of November, the Minister of Interior Affairs Minoru Terada had to resign following political and financial scandals concerning him.

A few days earlier, Justice Minister Yasuhiro Hanashi walked out the door after bizarrely complaining that his position only took center stage when it came to authorizing the execution of a convicted prisoner. dead.


And at the end of October, the Minister of Economic Revitalization Daishiro Yamagiwa was sacked for his relations with the Moon sect.

The dubious practices of this religious group, which now calls itself globally the "Family Federation for World Peace and Unification", have exploded into broad daylight in Japan since the assassination last July of the former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

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