November 14, 2019

With the scoop of the latest issue of Sunday Akahata, an allegation surfaced that Prime Minister Abe Shinzo made a false statement in Diet deliberations regarding the invitation of his supporters to the controversial annual cherry blossom-viewing party.

Grilled by Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Tamura Tomoko at a House Budget Committee meeting, PM Abe said that he was never involved in the process of inviting supporters.

However, Sunday Akahata recently discovered a letter which Abe’s office in his hometown prefecture of Yamaguchi issued to invite Abe’s supporters to the cherry-viewing party, and reported on the letter in the November 17 issue.

According to the Akahata Sunday edition, the invitation letter was posted on Facebook by a member of PM Abe’s supporters’ association who received the letter in February.

The letter explained that people interested in the cherry-viewing party will be officially invited by the Cabinet Office if they make a request to Abe’s local office or Abe’s secretary in charge of the matter. In addition, the letter stated that on the eve of the public event, the supporters’ association will hold a feast at a Tokyo hotel.

Sunday Akahata’s report not only hints at the possibility that PM Abe made a false statement in response to the JCP lawmaker, but also supports JCP Tamura’s argument that PM Abe uses the publicly-funded event for his purpose of pleasing local people closest to him, including his supporters.

Past related articles:
> Opposition parties set up team to probe into cherry blossom-viewing party scandal involving Abe[November 12, 2019]
> Tamura criticizes Abe for delighting his supporters with invitations to gov’t-hosted cherry-viewing party [ November 9, 2019]
> Abe allegedly used taxpayers’ money to entertain his supporters [October 21, 2019]