• Unsatisfied with the survey results, opposition parties intend to grill Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the Budget Committee in the lower chamber of the Diet on Wednesday

TOKYO: Political funds worth 579.49 million yen were mishandled by 85 members of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party in the five years from 2018, an LDP questionnaire survey showed Tuesday.

Covering all 374 lawmakers of the party plus 10 electoral district chiefs, the survey found that 85 respondents failed to list or misstated kickbacks from fundraising party ticket sales, or part of such sales, in their political fund reports.

Of them, 82 are lawmakers belonging to an LDP faction previously led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and another faction headed by former LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai, and three are electoral district chiefs.

The survey, which excluded three lawmakers who left the LDP after being indicted, specifically revealed that Nikai failed to report 35.26 million yen, Abe faction member Hiromi Mitsubayashi 29.54 million yen and former LDP policy chief Koichi Hagiuda, one of the five Abe faction kingpins, 27.28 million yen.

Unsatisfied with the survey results, opposition parties intend to grill Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, also LDP president, during intensive discussions over the money problem at the Budget Committee in the lower chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament, on Wednesday.

The LDP plans to additionally release the results of its hearing with the 85 members as well as chiefs of eight intraparty faction and groups by the end of this week and consider punishments.

But finding it unwise to expect the LDP’s voluntary efforts to reveal all facts related to the problem, Diet affairs chiefs from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party), the Japanese Communist Party and the Democratic Party for the People requested the LDP’s Kazunori Tanaka, who heads the Lower House’s Deliberative Council on Political Ethics, to hold a council meeting to question key members of the Abe and Nikai factions.

In reply, Tanaka said he took the request seriously.

Jun Azumi, the CDP’s Diet affairs chief, told reporters that unless the LDP accepts the request, the opposition parties cannot discuss with the ruling bloc when to hold a public hearing that is necessary for the Diet to vote on the fiscal 2024 budget.

On Feb. 5, the LDP released a list of 82 incumbent lawmakers belonging to the Abe and Nikai factions who were found to have not reported kickbacks. But the opposition camp has dismissed the list as insufficient.

JIJI Press