Japan Press Weekly

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2015 October 21 - 27 [POLITICS]

New members of reshuffled Abe Cabinet tainted with scandals

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, who often boasts of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party as “a treasure house of talented people”, appointed nine LDP lawmakers as new members of his reshuffled Cabinet. Less than two weeks after the new Cabinet was launched on October 7, however, those newcomers’ qualifications as Cabinet ministers began to be called into question.

It has recently come to light that an LDP branch represented by Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Moriyama Hiroshi had received donations totaling nearly seven million yen for three years since 2011 from companies which were involved in bid-rigging and were punished with a suspension of designated contractor status.

Another LDP branch headed by Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Hase Hiroshi also accepted contributions of 290,000 yen from an auto-related firm which was subsidized by the central and prefectural governments.

The Political Fund Control Law bans private companies from making donations to politicians directly but allows corporate donations to political party organizations. Taking advantage of this legal loophole, the two ministers received donations from those questionable companies.

Minister in charge of issues related to Okinawa and the Northern Territories Shimajiri Aiko distributed calendars with her name and photos of her face printed on them for free in her constituency in Okinawa before the 2010 Upper House election. This act may be in violation of the Public Offices Election Law which prohibits parliamentarians from handing out gifts in their electoral districts.

Moreover, some weekly magazines reported this month that Minister for Reconstruction Takagi Tsuyoshi intruded into a young woman’s house and stole her underwear about 30 years ago. At a press conference on October 20, Takagi denied this report but said that he will take no legal action charging slander against the magazines.

Minister in charge of Administrative Reform Kono Taro had sharply criticized the Abe administration’s energy policy for focusing on promoting nuclear power generation. However, right after he was appointed as a member of the new Cabinet, the page on his official website which had carried his policies and political views was closed due to “maintenance”.

Regarding the series of scandals and suspicions of improper behavior involving these new ministers, Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide said to reporters on October 19, “There’s no problem.”

Past related article:
> Reshuffled Abe Cabinet is again full of pro-Yasukuni members [October 12, 2015]