Faced with a growing scandal that is affecting his already degraded popularity, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffles his government and promises to“act with the speed of a ball of fire and [se] stand at the forefront to restore the confidence of the people.
On Thursday, December 14, he replaced four ministers involved in a slush fund affair within the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD) with experienced figures who were even close to him. Its former head of diplomacy (2021-September 2023) and potential prime minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, thus obtained the important position of general secretariat of the government, in place of Hirokazu Matsuno.
Mr. Kishida will also purge the party leadership of executives like Koichi Hagiuda, responsible for political issues, or Hiroshige Seko, leader of the PLD elected representatives in the Senate.
The scandal, the worst in decades for the PLD, has shaken the party since the announcement, at the end of November, of investigations launched by the special investigations office of the Tokyo prosecutor’s office. The main faction of the LDP, the very conservative Seiwakai, formerly led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (2012-2020) and which influences the direction of government policies, is said to have illegally accumulated between 2018 and 2022 a total of 500 million yen ( 3.2 million euros). The ministers and executives replaced are all part of it. Other factions would have done the same, but to a lesser extent.
The money comes from ticket sales for donation collection evenings, exceeding set quotas. This surplus would not have been declared. Some elected officials reportedly received up to 40 million yen.
Rejection of a motion of censure
The case does not spare Shinzo Abe’s widow, Akie Abe, who would have inherited 340 million yen from her husband’s political activities, including part of the slush fund system, all without paying any tax. The operation is legal because Mme Abe succeeded her husband at the head of political associations and that political successions between members of the same family are exempt, but this comes at a bad time for the PLD.
The scale of the slush fund scandal prompted Mr. Kishida to ask PLD officials to no longer organize fundraising evenings. The head of government also chose to resign as head of his own faction. “The prime minister should not belong to a faction during his mandate”he justified himself.
The opposition tabled a motion of censure against the government on Wednesday, which was rejected due to lack of a majority. “This government no longer has any legitimacy and no longer functions”however deplored Kenta Izumi, the boss of the Constitutional Democratic Party (PDC), the main opposition party.
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