Japan's largest opposition party will submit a no-confidence motion against the top government spokesman over accusations he failed to report millions of yen received as part of fundraising efforts for his party faction, a senior opposition lawmaker said Monday, Report informs via Kyodo News.
Jun Azumi, Diet affairs chief of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, told reporters that keeping Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno in his post "will harm the national interest," as he has failed in his responsibility to respond to the allegations.
The move comes as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who heads the Liberal Democratic Party, has already decided to fire Matsuno over his alleged failure to declare more than 10 million yen ($69,000) in income over the past five years, a source close to the matter said.
The no-confidence motion against Matsuno will be submitted later Monday, though it is all but guaranteed to fail in the House of Representatives which is dominated by the ruling LDP.
Allegations have been leveled against several key Cabinet and LDP figures from the largest faction, formerly headed by slain Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, including economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura and LDP policy chief Koichi Hagiuda.
Among other Abe faction lawmakers, Seiko Hashimoto, a House of Councillors member who served as president of the now-defunct Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic organizing committee, is also suspected of having failed to report income raised through parties, investigative sources said.
The scandal emerged following a criminal complaint alleging five LDP factions, including Kishida's group, underreported revenue from political fundraising parties.
Prosecutors are looking into a possible violation of the political funds control law after hundreds of millions of yen allegedly collected by Abe's faction through fundraising parties went unreported in political funding statements from 2018 to 2022.
LDP factions have traditionally set lawmakers quotas for sales of party tickets, usually priced at 20,000 yen. If they surpass their targets, the extra funds are returned to them as a type of commission.
In the LDP's biggest faction, which Abe headed until his assassination during an election campaign speech in July 2022, the extra funds had neither been reported as expenditure nor as payments to lawmakers, with critics saying it amounts to a form of tax evasion.
Kishida is considering replacing all four ministers, including Matsuno, five senior vice ministers and six parliamentary vice ministers from Abe's faction, while looking for the best time to change the composition of his Cabinet after the Diet session ends on Wednesday, the political source said.
