Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has removed his son Shotaro from his public office over some photographs taken at a private party that Shotaro had organized last December at the premier’s official residence in Tokyo. Shotaro Kishida is 32 years old and used to work as executive secretary to the prime minister. The photos circulated in the national press last week and showed both him and other relatives in poses considered inappropriate by public opinion: some showed Shotaro Kishida and a dozen other people posing on the stairs of the residence as if they were members of the newly elected government. Others instead showed two guests being photographed behind the podium used for press conferences.
From the design of the walls and the carpet, it is believed that the photo of the “pretend conference” is a “large hall”.
“In the room for entertaining guests, a dinner party was held in April last year with then Prime Minister Ardern of New Zealand and Prime Minister Marin of Finland in May.” https://t.co/DsQvGivBzQ
— Weekly Bunshun (@shukan_bunshun) May 30, 2023
Initially the Japanese government had made it known that Kishida had reprimanded his son but did not intend to take any other action. On Tuesday, however, the prime minister said that his son’s behavior had been “inappropriate” given his role and communicated that he wanted to replace him so that he could “take responsibility for him”.
Shotaro Kishida had already been criticized for abusing his position when he used the cars of the Japanese embassy for some private visits to both the UK and Paris, and for buying souvenirs in a luxury shop in London on official trips with his father . The Japan Times writes that the role of him will be assigned to Takayoshi Yamamoto, long-time personal secretary of Fumio Kishida and currently an employee of his office. The affair risks further decreasing consensus around Kishida, who had already been accused of showing favoritism for having appointed his son executive secretary last October.
