Japan’s government is in disarray thanks to an unfolding list of lawmakers who failed to report some of their income in their political fund statements. This week the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) presented a list of 82 lawmakers, belonging to three different factions, who pocketed millions of dollars in kickbacks from political party fundraising … Read more
The resignation of four cabinet ministers in the most serious political corruption scandal in recent memory begs for a certain appraisal of affairs. In the past year and a half, Japan has been going through a spectacular series of corruption incidents and fraud at the highest levels of government and industry, eroding an already brittle … Read more
A college professor’s criminal complaint about the Liberal Democratic Party’s sloppy bookkeeping resulted in some of the most influential LDP members being purged from the Kishida Cabinet and the party leadership. After conducting meticulous research, Hiroyuki Kamiwaki of Kobe Gakuin University found out that the members of the leadership of the so-called Abe faction, the … Read more
It was the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack when we met House of Representatives member, former Defense Minister, and Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) heavyweight Ishiba Shigeru in his office in Nagatacho. Another battle was brewing that day. A scandal-driven frenzy in the Japanese Diet over the secret slush funds of LDP factions, or habatsu, … Read more