JAPAN’S EMBATTLED leader, Naoto Kan, has again been mauled in public – by his famously sharp-tongued wife.
Nobuko Kan (65) told reporters yesterday that she regularly berated her husband and would not marry him again if given a second chance. “I’ve already lived this life and it’s not fun to repeat the same thing,” she said. “I would want to have a totally different life.”
Asked about the prime minister’s bruising daily encounters in parliament as he battles to revive Japan’s inert economy and reverse a growing social malaise, Ms Kan offered less-than-wholehearted support.
“Considering that he has been a bully himself for years, it’s only his due now that he’s a member of the ruling party,” she said. “I guess the challenge for him is how will he take it. We’re both similar personalities: good at attacking people but not so good at taking it.”
Mr Kan is struggling to revive public support, which has slipped below 30 per cent in the six months since he took office.
His ruling Democratic Party has retreated on its key pledges and many analysts expect him to step down some time this year, making him the latest in a string of short-lived Japanese prime ministers.
His wife, who has been called her husband’s secret weapon, said she did her bit to help out, not with comforting words but by making the job of answering tough questions in parliament look easier by giving him an even tougher time at home.
“In the mixture of scolding him and cheering him, I spend more time scolding him,” she said. “Maybe I should go a little easier on him, but this is how he puts it: ‘I don’t like parliament that much, but it is better than arguing with you.’ And then he goes off [to parliamentary debate].”
The Kans have spent decades working together on human rights issues and have been married for more than 40 years.
Ms Kan last year revealed her thoughts about her husband in a book that shocked some with its bluntness. Japan's leader is a fashion disaster, a bad public speaker and is a poor natural leader, she revealed in What on Earth Will Change in Japan Now That You Are Prime Minister.
Yesterday she said the book was “the first and last one I’ll ever write”. Mr Kan has called his wife his toughest critic.
The prime minister said recently he would carry on even if his support fell to “zero per cent”, a pledge his wife said she supported.
“I tell him there’s no such thing as minus so as long as you don’t get into minus figures, you’ll be okay. We’re both positive, optimistic people. To simply give up because you’re subjected to a lot of criticism is not something I can condone and I don’t want that to happen.” – (Additional reporting: Reuters)