Japan Press Weekly

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2021 January 27 - February 2 [POLITICS]

JCP Koike: 3 LDP cadremen should resign as Dietmembers for visiting hostess bars under state of emergency

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira on February 1 said that three Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers who hold important roles in the party "should resign as Dietmembers" for dining at hostess clubs in Tokyo's upscale Ginza district despite being under the second COVID state of emergency.

The three are Matsumoto Jun, former chairperson of the National Public Safety Commission; Tanose Taido, State Minister of Education; and Otsuka Takashi, chairperson of the LDP Diet Affairs Committee. They left the party following the revelation of their late-evening visit to hostess clubs in the Ginza.

Asked for a comment on their leaving the LDP at a press conference in the Diet building, Koike said, "The LDP accepted their resignations from the party only because 'they had caused trouble to the party', not because 'they had betrayed the general public'." Koike went on to say that the LDP responsibility as a ruling party should be questioned.

Koike pointed out, "The LDP is showing its reluctance to advise the three to give up their Diet seats, possibly because of fear of losing in by-elections."

Like these three figures, Lower House member of the Komei Party Toyama Kiyohiko also dined at a members-only hostess club in the Ginza under the state of emergency, and he resigned from the Diet. It was revealed that he paid for eating and drinking expenses at bars and cabaret clubs from his political funds.