TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio said Monday that he does not intend to dissolve the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament, before punishing Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers involved in a money scandal.

“I think I will make a decision during the current ordinary Diet session” on the punishments of LDP lawmakers involved in the scandal, Kishida told the Budget Committee of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber.

“I am not thinking of dissolving (the Lower House) before the punishments” for a snap election, he added.

The ordinary session is slated to end on June 23. Kishida is president of the ruling LDP.

Asked whether such lawmakers’ attendance at a hearing of a Diet political ethics panel would affect decisions on their punishments, Kishida said that what they say is important, not the format for their explanations.

 In the scandal, revenues from fundraising parties by some LDP factions were kicked back to members and left unrecorded in political funds reports.

JIJI Press