Image is everything: Japan minister’s bid for leadership hurt by husband’s criminal past

Japan communication chief Seiko Noda’s chances of becoming the country’s first female prime minister have been damaged after it was revealed her husband was once a member of a notorious criminal group.

In its September 28 edition, the Shukan Bunshun weekly magazine reported that Noda’s husband, Fuminobu, served as the executive secretary of the Masayama-gumi – a crime syndicate based in Kyoto.

The gang is affiliated with the Aizukotetsu-kai – one of the oldest yakuza organisations in Japan with criminal roots dating back to the mid-1800s – as well as the larger and more powerful Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, according to the Tokyo Reporter website.

Noda’s husband left the Masayama-gumi soon before it disbanded in early 2000, after its leader was jailed in connection with a murder. Nevertheless, he was convicted of two crimes; once in 1999 for forging an official document by using his brother’s driving licence after a traffic violation; and another in 2005 for using spam emails to promote an adult website.

Noda married Fuminobu in 2011, five years after divorcing her first husband, and while she was building a reputation as a future leader of the Liberal Democratic Party.

A self-declared conservative, 57-year-old Noda was first elected to the Diet in 1993 and was the youngest cabinet minister since the end of the second world war, when she was given the posts and telecommunications portfolio under then prime minister Keizo Obuchi in 1998.