The slush fund is connected to fund-raising parties held by the Abe faction. According to sources, Abe faction members were given quotas to fill for ticket purchases to its fund-raising parties. The size of the quotas depended on how long the members served as Diet members or if they held an LDP or faction post. Each ticket cost 20,000 JPY. The Abe faction political fund reports have listed such ticket purchases. But the reports did not include the amounts that went beyond the quota for each faction member, the sources said. The extra money was placed in the slush fund and was eventually paid back to the member, they said. Investigators from the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office have questioned individuals associated with the Abe faction on a voluntary basis about the handling of the funds, sources said.
Kishida and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are facing mounting scrutiny after allegations that party lawmakers, including high-profile members, may have pocketed more than 100 million yen ($693,000) of fundraising proceeds that were left off the books. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura and LDP's policy chief Koichi Hagiuda are set to be replaced as they are among those suspected of having failed to declare political funds properly. [...] The Asahi newspaper and other media said Matsuno is suspected of having failed to declare more than 10 million yen he received in the past five years from the biggest faction in the LDP. Matsuno has declined to comment on the allegations.
All of the new ministerial picks belong to other factions that are more distanced from the scandal and have experience dealing with questioning from parliament. Politicians in cabinet posts are more open to outside scrutiny, and lawmakers who have not yet faced that scrutiny are seen as at greater risk of being involved in the scandal -- which could be disastrous for Kishida should it come to light. The Abe faction had been deeply involved in the Kishida administration's policy decisions thanks to its hold on key government and party posts.
Dozens of lawmakers, including senior faction officials, are accused of failing to properly report the kickbacks. Yoshitaka Ikeda, a former state minister of education, had amended his political funding statement by Wednesday to include around 32 million yen in donations over a three-year period. Prosecutors have already begun questioning dozens of aides and accountants to suspected lawmakers on a voluntary basis. The scandal could spread even further, with the LDP faction led by party heavyweight Toshihiro Nikai suspected of failing to report over 100 million yen in fundraising income. The faction led by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida appears to have underreported income as well. Prosecutors are questioning staffers from the two factions.
Suzuki was a member of the LDP faction once led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that accumulated about half a billion yen in unreported money from fund-raising parties. The faction is the largest in the party. [...] Suzuki said he received 600,000 JPY (USD 4,200) from the Abe faction between 2018 and 2022. [...] Regarding the kickback of money raised through fund-raising parties, Suzuki told reporters, "Including local assemblies, in the political world money was returned for tickets sold (to fund-raising parties)." He added, "While it might sound strange to say so, in this world, there was the recognition that it was almost like a culture."
Friday's personnel change came days after prosecutors searched the offices of the Abe faction and another led by former LDP Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai, a party heavyweight who has kept his distance from the Kishida government. The prosecutors suspect the Abe faction, called Seiwaken, or the Seiwa policy study group, returned a portion of fundraising party revenues that they raised from ticket sales, sources close to the matter said.
Prosecutors suspect the Lower House member failed to list the 48.26 million yen on his organization's political fund reports over those five years in conspiracy with his policy secretary, Kazuhiro Kakinuma, who oversees accounting, sources said. Prosecutors also arrested Kakinuma, 45, who is responsible for preparing political fund income and expenditure reports of the political fund management organization, Ikeda Reimei-kai, the sources said. The LDP decided to expel Ikeda following his arrest.
Prosecutors will also pursue a case against the treasurer of a separate faction led by former LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai for allegedly failing to report over 100 million yen in fundraising income. Japanese law typically holds accounting professionals responsible for submitting accurate political funding reports. Lawmakers themselves are rarely charged unless they can objectively be proven to have ordered or approved improper reporting.
Tokyo prosecutors indicted current or former accountants from three of six LDP factions, including those led by Kishida and party heavyweight Toshihiro Nikai. Those led by Kishida and Nikai, as well as Seiwaken, have announced plans to disband. The remaining factions include those led by LDP Vice President Taro Aso and Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi. Although their members are not facing indictment, they are also under pressure to act as public criticism mounts.
Back in 1994, the Liberal Democratic Party proclaimed unequivocally, "We are disbanding our 'habatsu' factions, and all habatsu offices will be shut down by the end of this year." The LDP had been ousted from power the year before, and that proclamation was a desperate measure, taken in the hope of winning back the public's support. Has the LDP stuck to its declaration of 30 years ago? I suppose I needn't even bother with the answer. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, former party Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai and Ryu Shionoya, chairman of the powerful Abe faction that was once led by the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on Jan. 19 announced the disbandment of LDP factions. Will history repeat itself? Incidentally, the dissolution of those intraparty cliques also occurred under the Fukuda administration in the 1970s. And when the Recruit stock-for-favors scandal came to light in the late 1980s, the party expressed its collective "resolve" to do away with factional politics.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is considering asking some Abe faction leaders to leave the party over a political fund scandal, a harsher disciplinary measure than previously expected, sources said. The LDP plans to take disciplinary measures against about 40 lawmakers who failed to list 5 million JPY (USD 33,000) or more in revenues from fund-raising parties on their political fund reports, the sources said. The Party Ethics Committee is expected to hold a meeting on April 4 to decide on the specific measures.
In particular, the LDP leadership is planning to urge two senior members of the party's largest Abe faction -- Ryu Shionoya and Hiroshige Seko -- to leave the party. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in April 2022 instructed the faction, which he led at the time, to end the practice of fundraising kickbacks. But four officials, including Shionoya and Seko, decided to keep the scheme in place in a discussion held in August that year, after Abe was assassinated. Neither Kishida nor Toshihiro Nikai, a party heavyweight who announced he will not seek reelection, would face punishment.