Tokyo, January 05: Japan’s finance minister declined to comment Tuesday on whether he might step down for health reasons, saying he was still waiting for test results after being hospitalised last week with fatigue.
“The doctors’ decision will come soon,” Hirohisa Fujii, 77, said at a press conference after a regular Cabinet meeting. “I will respect the doctors’ decision.”
Asked whether he would consider leaving his post if the test results were not positive, Fujii said the question was too hypothetical to answer.
Fujii, the oldest member of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s cabinet, was admitted to hospital on December 28 due to high blood pressure and fatigue after weeks of hard work on the national budget.
He left hospital two days later to attend a cabinet meeting, but returned for further tests.
The veteran lawmaker was picked by incoming premier Hatoyama in September to steer the world’s number two economy out of its worst recession in decades, returning to a post he held briefly in the early 1990s.
One of the few members of the current cabinet with previous government experience, he had planned to retire from politics but was persuaded by Hatoyama to stay on to pursue an agenda of slashing public sector waste.
His resignation would be another setback for Hatoyama, who has seen a sharp drop in his approval ratings since he took office in September, with polls indicating voters worry he lacks leadership.
—Agencies