Faction Led by Kishida Faction Dissolves

The Yomiuri Shimbun
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrives at the Prime Minister’s Office in Tokyo on Tuesday.

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — The ruling party faction formerly led by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday submitted to the internal affairs minister a notice to disband itself as a political group.

It became the second faction of the Liberal Democratic Party to disband itself after the faction that was headed by LDP General Council Chairman Hiroshi Moriyama.

“I had been told by the [Kishida faction] secretariat that it would submit a final dissolution notice around early September,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, a member of the faction, told reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday.

In January, Kishida said that he would disband his faction in the wake of a high-profile slush funds scandal involving LDP factions. In June, the Kishida faction closed its office in Tokyo’s Nagatacho political district.

Among other LDP faction heads, Toshimitsu Motegi, the party’s secretary-general, told a news conference that he is quickly advancing procedures to dissolve the faction he leads.