Kishida Wants to Remove Abe Faction

The money scandal of the factions in Liberal Democratic Party had a huge impact on Fumio Kishida administration. Concerning the scandal mainly focused on the secret money in Seiwa-kai, or Abe faction, Prime Minister Kishida is going to replace his Cabinet members and the board members of LDP, who are involved in the scandal. It is expected that the Ministers from Abe faction will be out of the Cabinet. However, most factions including Kishida’s own are not unrelated to the scandal. The magnitude of the scandal on Kishida administration has yet been determined.

At the beginning, the scandal looked like some mistakes of each faction in reporting political money of fundraising parties. But it entered another phase when the existence of secret money was revealed. Some factions “kicked back” the surplus of ticket sales beyond the quota imposed on each member to the members. It was not recorded on the political fund report.

 

The amount of “recorded” money of Abe faction was the least among five suspected factions in 2022. It is unnatural for Abe faction, which is the biggest in LDP, to record the smallest amount of money from fundraising party. It indicated that Abe faction had a great amount of unrecorded kicked-back money.

 

The first target of media was Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno. Matsuno has reportedly been received about ¥10 million from Abe faction as the “kickback” for the ticket sales beyond his quota between 2018 and 2022. As the secretary general of Abe faction between 2019 and 2021, Matsuno was at the position who knew about the money coming in and going out of the faction. Nevertheless, he refused to answer any question about the secret money in his press conference as CCS, the spokesperson of Kishida Cabinet.

 

Asahi Shimbun revealed that other leaders of Abe faction are suspected to have received the kickback as well. They included Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura, Chairman of LDP Policy Research Council Koichi Hagiuda, Chairman of LDP Diet Affairs Committee Tsuyoshi Takagi, Secretary General of LDP Upper House Caucus Hiroshige Seko and the head of Abe faction Ryu Shionoya. Nishimura, Hagiuda, Takagi, Seko and Matsuno are designated as “Five Leaders” of Abe faction.

 

According to the news reports, Kishida decided to replace all of those Five Leaders. It is possible that all the ministers from Abe faction, including State Ministers and Parliamentary Vice-ministers, will be out of the administration. However, it is not easy to organize an administration without any member of the biggest faction. Some members of Abe faction without deep involvement in the scandal might be staying.

 

Kishida is likely to have a reshuffle of his Cabinet and replace some board members of LDP. However, it is not only Abe faction but other major factions including Kochi-kai, which Kishida has been leading from the beginning of his premiership, that is involved in the scandals. Kishida needs to show his way to LDP reform.

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