Ishiba’s policy of excluding some ‘slush fund lawmakers’ from nomination… Impact of public opinion burden

Ishiba’s policy of excluding some ‘slush fund lawmakers’ from nomination… Impact of public opinion burden


Refer Report


Japan’s new President Shigeru Ishiba is sitting after completing his first speech at the National Assembly on the 4th. Reuters Yonhap News

On the 6th, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, virtually confirmed the nomination rules for the upcoming House of Representatives (House of Representatives) election, which will result in the non-nomination of some lawmakers involved in the ‘slush fund scandal’.

According to the Asahi Shimbun, Prime Minister Ishiba announced this policy to reporters after consulting with Secretary General Hiroshi Moriyama and Election Planning Committee Chairman Shinjiro Koizumi at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters on this day.

There are three major criteria announced by Prime Minister Ishiba: ① Members who received a more severe disciplinary action than ‘exclusion from nomination’ during the party’s disciplinary action against members involved in the scandal in April, or ② Those who received a lower level of disciplinary action but are responsible for explaining it to the Political Ethics Review Board. If ③ the local residents’ understanding is not sufficiently achieved, the nomination will not be made.

Accordingly, in addition to the three people, including former Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura, former Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Hakubun Shimomura, and lawmaker Tsuyoshi Takagi, who were excluded from nomination at the time, additional lawmakers involved in the slush fund scandal are expected to be excluded from nomination.

The Liberal Democratic Party had previously imposed disciplinary action against 39 lawmakers whose involvement in the slush fund scandal was revealed through prosecutorial investigations. 36 members of the Abe faction, which was once the largest faction in the party, and 3 members of the Nikai faction, of which 34 received disciplinary action lower than ‘exclusion from nomination’.

Prime Minister Ishiba also said that in the case of lawmakers who were in trouble for failing to properly record their political funds in the ledger, they will not be allowed to run for duplicate candidacy for proportional representation even if they are nominated for constituencies. “I won’t do it,” he said.

Under Japan’s current election law, candidates running in constituencies who have received permission from their political party during the House of Representatives election can also run for proportional representation, so there are cases where politicians who are defeated in constituencies end up holding proportional representation seats. However, for lawmakers involved in scandals, this ‘proportional revival’ method is available. The goal is to prevent . Prime Minister Ishiba plans to finalize this policy at the party’s election preparation committee on the 9th.

Prime Minister Ishiba was said to have discussed nominating Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers who were involved in the slush fund scandal ahead of the general election. At the time of the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election, he expressed his intention not to nominate lawmakers involved in slush funds, but the collective backlash from Abe faction members involved in many scandals and the lack of time to exclude slush fund lawmakers and nominate new candidates influenced his change of position. It was analyzed as crazy. Prime Minister Ishiba excluded Abe faction members from his cabinet appointments immediately after taking office.

Prime Minister Ishiba’s return to non-nomination appears to be the result of being conscious of public opinion. According to the results of a telephone survey conducted by the Mainichi Shimbun in collaboration with the Social Survey Research Center on the 3rd with 2,061 people aged 18 or older, 70% of respondents said they were ‘unconvinced’ by the nomination of a member of the National Assembly who was in trouble due to the slush fund scandal. reached. The opinion that it was ‘acceptable’ was only 8%.

The Asahi Shimbun reported, “The Liberal Democratic Party’s executive branch initially indicated that it would not use the slush fund issue as a criterion for determining nominations, but it appears that, conscious of public backlash, it changed some requirements after two days of consultation.”


Prime Minister Ishiba, who took office on the 1st, announced that he would dissolve the House of Representatives on the 9th and hold an early general election on the 27th. The Prime Minister’s right to dissolve the National Assembly is evaluated as a ‘report of imputation’ to strengthen the foundation of the government by holding an election at an advantageous time. However, if there is no success in the election, the regime may be shaken from the beginning.

Source: Korean