Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is set to fire a second top member of his cabinet as well as three party officials, a Japanese newspaper reported, as voter anger grows in response to a fundraising proceeds scandal. The report comes just days after Kishida stepped down as leader of the Kochikai faction of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in response to the scandal.
According to the report, Kishida has already decided to replace Trade Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, two senior officials in the LDP, as well as a possible third person. These reports come just a day after it was revealed that Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, and the LDP’s policy chief Koichi Hagiuda, were planned to be replaced. Matsuno, Nishimura, and Hagiuda are among those who are suspected of having failed to declare political funds.
The paper also reported that Tsuyoshi Takagi, chair of the party’s Diet Affairs Committee will be replaced.
Voter support for Kishida, which was already poor, is sinking even further following the scandal. Lawmakers in Japan’s ruling party have been accused of underreporting funds and are now being investigated. Several dozen lawmakers from the LDP are set to be investigated this coming week over 100 million yen ($680,000) of fundraising proceeds that were not officially reported.
According to reports from October, Kishida’s poll ratings were already quite low. As many as 54% of Japanese viewed the two-year performance of Kishida as negatively, while 38% said they could assess his job performance as “more or less positively”, and just 2% believed his two years could be viewed positively.
Kishida has attempted to soften the blow of inflation to his country, by extending subsidies on gasoline and utilities, as well as offering tax rebates and handouts to low-income households, but these policies have failed to improve satisfaction among his voters. And a more recent poll, published in November, found support for his cabinet had dropped to 21% - the lowest for a Japanese premier in more than a decade.
In Japan, it is common for lawmakers to hold fundraising events. The money that is fundraised typically comes from ticket sales. Whatever leftover profits there are following the costs of the event goes to the organizers. These large-scale parties are a major source of revenue for factions. In 2022, the Kishida faction received ¥229.35 million in revenue with 80% coming from fundraising parties, according to a Japanese news source.
In late November, underreporting allegations first surfaced and it was reported that five major LDP factions made a total of ¥40 million from ticket sales that went unreported over the course of four years. Then, on December 1, it was reported that the LDP faction led by the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had profited about ¥100 million in ticket sales over a five-year period.