Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said on November 9 that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi had not been drinking before the G7 online meeting she skipped, an answer to a question the opposition had not asked.
The meeting ran for 30 minutes from 9:30 p.m. on October 2. Takaichi had said she did not know the start time until just before it began, and that online arrangements could not be made in time.
Opposition lawmakers have pressed her over the dinner she attended with Taro Aso, the party vice president, and others shortly before the meeting. They have also pointed to contradictions between her account and that of Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi.
According to reports, the government's decision to blame the French side for the absence angered France. Some have suggested it contributed to Japanese-made vehicles being left out of EU preferential treatment for electric cars.
A new timeline, and the same question
Kihara said the schedule changed at the last minute. A request to hold the meeting on October 8, the following week, came on October 1, and the next day came word that it should be held that day instead.
The government has said the prime minister stayed away to be ready in case agenda items were added that required her attendance. Kihara said she had drunk no alcohol at all.
At a Lower House Financial Affairs Committee session on November 6, Komeito's Mitsunari Okamoto said the G7 is a position senior politicians, bureaucrats and diplomats fought for. "Japan is the country that needs the G7 most," he said.
Takaichi replied that the absence had been judged comprehensively after weighing various factors. She said Japan approaches the G7 with the spirit of representing Asia.
“What the prime minister has just answered does not explain at all why she was absent on October 2.”Mitsunari Okamoto, Komeito lawmaker, at the November 6 committee session
Pushback online
The reply drew criticism from outside the chamber. Lawmaker Kiyomi Tsujimoto wrote on X: "Oh? Has she changed the reason for her absence again?"
Novelist Keiichiro Hirano posted: "Do you think deciding to skip it by 'comprehensive judgment' is better than the reasons you gave until now?"
Ichiro Ozawa said the prime minister's office and ministries appear to be scrambling to cover up Takaichi's blunders with excuses and rewrites. "Unfortunately, she does not appear to have the aptitude to be prime minister," he wrote.
Other posts asked why the government had not said sooner that she had not been drinking, and why she skipped the meeting if alcohol was not involved.