TOKYO: The surprise resignation from Parliament on Friday of former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka, one of Japan’s few prominent female legislators, dismayed many here and had tongues wagging about the ironic fate of the popular politician.

The colourful, blunt-talking Tanaka stepped down under a cloud of allegations that she had misused state funds meant to pay an aide’s salary, charges she has denied.

It was an ignominious end to the nine-year parliamentary career of Tanaka, 58, whose directness makes her stand out here like a red dress in a sea of black suits. Although Japanese tend to shun confrontation, her sharp tongue won her points with a public largely disgusted with the nation’s politics.

She had made her agenda reforming the scandal-ridden bureaucracy and machine-style politics of the ruling party, to which she belonged, even though her father had been the king of pork-barrel politics.

That her father, the late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, also had resigned amid a bribery scandal in 1974 but nevertheless remained a shadow “shogun,” added to the atmosphere surrounding her abrupt departure.

Newspapers published extra editions. News reports broadcast continuously throughout the day. And Japanese constituents shook their heads in chagrin. Some were disgusted that Makiko Tanaka had gotten mired in allegations of scandal.

“I expected her to do a lot, but she totally betrayed me,” said Eiko Shinozawa, 45, a female accountant in Tokyo. “It was all a facade and she was just as low down as the rest of the lot.”

More people seemed to feel betrayed that Tanaka had opted to resign rather than continue to fight for reforms and that she would no longer be around to call it as she sees it.

“Oh, it’s so disappointing,” said Sakae Hirose, 60, a Tokyo “salaryman.” “Of course, her scandal is a problem and it’s bad. But she’s got vitality. She is strong and able. It’s a pity she was sullied by dirty Japanese politics that got her involved with this.”

Some suggested that the allegations were small potatoes in the spectre of Japanese political scandals and that she might have been set up by bureaucrats or members of her ruling Liberal Democratic Party, with whom she often took issue and rarely got along.

In a characteristic remark, she once publicly branded three top leaders of the LDP as “bonjin, gunjin and henjin,” — bland man, military man and strange man. The man she called strange is current Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. He nevertheless named her foreign minister last year because of her popular appeal, only to sack her after continued high-profile clashes with bureaucrats and several most-undiplomatic gaffes.

But others said she resigned to spare herself a fuller investigation, and to pave the way for her son, 31, to run for office in October to succeed her. On a television talk show, critic Yoshiu Arita accused her office of failing to account for more than $800,000 of taxpayer money.

The allegations against her are rather murky. State money that had been allocated for a secretary disappeared, and she allegedly used staff paid by her family-run bus company to assist her. She denied the charges. She apologized on Friday for the lingering doubts: “It’s regrettable that citizens still have the impression that I didn’t clear up the allegations against me.”

It would be a stretch to say that Tanaka’s resignation deepened pessimism about the political paralysis here: It would be hard for it to get any worse. The public is weary of the lack of change and seemingly endless scandals that have driven several other prominent politicians from office in recent months. Koizumi, installed as prime minister last year amid soaring popularity and hopes for change, hasn’t been able to accomplish much reform. His ratings plummeted after he fired Tanaka.—Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) Los Angeles Times