Obuchi chosen as minister because she has child: Sasagawa

TOKYO, Dec. 7 Kyodo - Takashi Sasagawa, chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's General Council, said Saturday that LDP lower house member Yuko Obuchi was chosen as state minister in charge of tackling declining childbirths because she gave birth to a boy.
''Why would she be chosen as (the minister)? Because she had a baby,'' Sasagawa
said in his address to a party in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture. ''People would
ask, 'How could you really understand how to tackle the slowing birthrate,' if
a minister is unmarried and has no child?''
Obuchi, a daughter of the late former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, assumed the
post in September at the age of 34 as the youngest postwar minister.
Sasagawa also said, ''I could have assumed the ministerial post as I have 14
grandchildren.''
He later told Kyodo News, ''I did not mean that a person without children
cannot assume the ministerial post. I just meant it would be persuasive if a
person who has a child, as Ms. Obuchi, assumes the post.''
==Kyodo