Lawmakers Matsuno, Nishimura Deny Role in Political Fund Scandals; Former LDP Abe Faction Secretaries General Face Ethics Panel

The Yomiuri Shimbun

19:00 JST, March 1, 2024

Two former secretaries general of the Abe faction of the Liberal Democratic Party denied any involvement in the faction’s financial accounting or its decisions on whether to continue providing kickbacks to members, when they spoke at a Friday morning session of the Diet’s ethics council regarding the party factions’ political funds scandal.

The two — former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno and former Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura — appeared at the House of Representatives Deliberative Council on Political Ethics to discuss issues related to the faction’s alleged violations of the Political Funds Control Law.

Nishimura said that four faction executives — including himself — discussed in August 2022 whether to continue the kickback practice, but that no conclusion was reached at that time.

At the beginning of the session, Nishimura stated that the faction’s politics and money issue “has caused the public to distrust politics. I sincerely apologize as one of the executives of the faction.”

Nishimura served as the faction’s secretary general from October 2021 to August 2022. He denied any involvement in the kickbacks, saying, “My role as secretary general was to manage young Diet members and support their political activities, and I was not involved in any of the faction’s accounting.”

“It [kickbacks] was like a customary practice handled by past leaders and accounting managers of the faction for many years,” he said and that he had “never seen any account books, bank books, income and expenditure reports or the like.”

According to Nishimura, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — then leader of the faction — suggested in April 2022 the faction stop the payment of kickbacks during a meeting with Nishimura and faction executives Ryu Shionoya, Hakubun Shimomura and Hiroshige Seko.

After Abe’s July 2022 death, Shionoya, Shimomura, Seko, Nishimura and others discussed in early August whether to continue the practice, Nishimura said.

“We couldn’t reach a conclusion at the time of the discussions in early August,” Nishimura said Friday, stating that he was “not involved in the subsequent discussions” on the matter because he was replaced as the faction’s secretary general due to his appointment as economy minister.

Matsuno served as the faction’s secretary general from September 2019 to October 2021. Matsuno also apologized for the scandals at the beginning of the council session, but said that he had “never been asked to make any decision or receive any reports on matters related to accounting.”