POLITICIANS TYPICALLY blame stress, overwork and personal “issues” for being forced to step down early, but Ryu Matsumoto may well be the first to cite his blood group.
As he tried to explain a politically disastrous visit to the shattered northeast, Japan’s minister for reconstruction said yesterday that his type-B blood made him abrasive and outspoken.
Mr Matsumoto (60) sparked outrage when on a visit to tsumani-ravaged regions, he gave the busy governor of the Miyagi prefecture a humiliating dressing down for being a few minutes late.
After literally wagging his finger at a stunned Yoshihiro Murai, Mr Matsumoto then jokingly warned watching journalists that if they reported the incident, their companies would be “finished”.
In tones akin to a schoolmaster berating an unruly child, he also told Iwate governor Takuya Tasso the government would withhold financial aid from areas “without ideas” for reconstruction. “I want you to work with that kind of resolve,” he said.
Both prefectures have lost thousands of people and are struggling to house thousands more left homeless by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.
Footage of the Miyagi meeting was quickly leaked online, forcing the minister to quit just over a week after he took office. A teary-eyed Mr Matsumoto, who was directly appointed by prime minister Naoto Kan, yesterday said he was sorry for offending the people in the disaster-hit areas.
“I thought I was emotionally close to the disaster victims, but my comments were too harsh,” he said.
He attempted to salvage something from the disaster by tapping into a popular cultural belief in parts of Asia that blood types are an indicator of personality. People in Mr Matsumoto’s type-B group are considered creative and strong, but also hot-tempered and unpredictable. The explanation left most people cold.
The resignation, and the widespread belief that Mr Matsumoto was insensitive to victims of Japan’s worst disaster since the second World War, has added to the woes of Mr Kan’s government, which has been painted as bumbling and inept.
In a country where politeness is prized, such was the insensitivity of Mr Matsumoto’s outburst that some have smelled a rat.
Political blogs speculate he may have deliberately behaved badly to sabotage Mr Kan’s already tottering government.