Four Japanese ministers resigned yesterday after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that he intended to tackle a financial fraud scandal within the party he leads, local media reported.
“I submitted my resignation to the prime minister”, he declared in the early hours of today [ontem] Kishida’s right-hand man, the general secretary (with ministerial status) and government spokesman, Hirokazu Matsuno, referring to the suspicions of which he is the target.
Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura, Minister of Internal Affairs Junji Suzuki and Minister of Agriculture Ichiro Miyashita also resigned, along with five vice ministers and other officials, Matsuno announced.
“Public distrust is centered on me, in relation to political funds, leading to distrust towards the Government. As an investigation is underway, I thought I should clarify things”, explained Yasutoshi Nishimura to journalists.
According to the press, Japanese prosecutors are investigating suspicions of fraud against dozens of members of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP, conservative right), which has governed the country almost uninterruptedly since 1955.
Japanese media have pointed out that these members are suspected of not having declared the equivalent of several million euros collected through the sale of tickets for fundraising events, which the LDP allegedly paid them.
Investigators are interested in members of the party’s largest internal faction, led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated last year.
These will have received around 500 million yen (3.2 million euros) over a period of five years, until 2022. Kishida, who considered it “extremely regrettable that the situation has given rise to public distrust”, promised to “become into a ball of fire to restore confidence in the Government”, announcing that he would “quickly make appointments”.
The Japanese Prime Minister is preparing to replace not only the three resigning ministers, but also the General Secretary and Government Spokesperson, Hirokazu Matsuno, the press reported.
In total, nine ministers and vice-ministers will be affected by the reshuffle. All the ministers to be replaced belong to the “Abe faction”, although the scandal is said to also affect members of Kishida’s side, the Japanese media added.
Even before this scandal, 66-year-old Kishida’s popularity was at an all-time low due to persistent inflation and the falling yen, resulting in a drop in the purchasing power of Japanese families, despite the government’s announcement last month of a new fiscal stimulus plan.