Audio data obtained! Why Wakayama Don Toshihiro Nikai Failed to Show Rigidity in Choosing Candidates for the House of Representatives by-election

On February 18, just before the April 11 supplementary election for Wakayama’s first district in the House of Representatives, the LDP’s Wakayama Prefectural Federation finally decided to field Hirofumi Kado, 57, a former member of the House of Representatives.

Why was the candidate selection process so confusing? The key factor is the move of Toshihiro Nikai, 84, a member of the House of Representatives of the Liberal Democratic Party, who is the “Don of Wakayama.

The April by-election for Wakayama Prefecture’s first district in the House of Representatives will be held after Shuhei Kishimoto, 66, the current governor of Wakayama Prefecture, ran for the prefectural governorship as a member of the House of Representatives. Since last September, when Mr. Kishimoto resigned from the Lower House, LDP members Yosuke Tsuruyasu (56) and Hirofumi Kado (57) have indicated their intention to run for the seat, and there has been a fierce competition for the LDP’s endorsement.

Tsuruho is a member of the Nikai faction, while Kado was a member of the Nikai faction when he was an incumbent member of the House of Councillors.

Mr. Nikai was initially thought to be supporting Mr. Tsuruho, a former member of the House of Councillors, who had been a member of the Nikkai faction for some time.

It is said that Mr. Tsuruho is a member of the House of Councillors.

In November of last year, Kado, hoping to turn things around, visited the LDP headquarters with a Wakayama city councilor, a supporter of Kado, on a “Nikai visit. This magazine obtained audio data of the visit. The magazine has obtained audio data of the visit, which shows a 24-minute conversation between Nikai and Kado.

I appreciate the signatures of the members of the “Association for the Revival of Hirofumi Kado. （I’ll send them out and say let’s do our best together. We will pay for the postcards, so please buy the postcards, write the address on the front, and bring them to me. Do it right away.

Yes!　Thank you very much.

First of all, Mr. Nikai, I would like to ask the prefectural federation to nominate you as a candidate.

That’s a piece of cake.

However, this “Nikai visit” was in vain, and there was no further movement by Mr. Nikai to push Mr. Kado up the agenda.

Kado ran for the Lower House four times from Wakayama’s 1st Constituency since the 2012 Lower House election, but was defeated by current Governor Kishimoto on all four occasions. He has continued to serve as a member of the assembly, but in the ’21 election, his fourth time, he was unsuccessful in his bid for a proportional resurrection. He has a history of scandals, including an affair with Ikuko Nakagawa, a member of the House of Representatives, which was frowned upon by local residents.

Perhaps that is why Nikai thought he could not win at the gate. In fact, Nikai is said to have been working toward the end of the year and into the beginning of the new year to support Senator Tsuruho.

But even in February, no candidate was decided upon. What was significant was that the FRIDAY report revealed that Senator Tsuruho and Mr. Kado had ties to the former Unification Church one after the other.

On January 20, FRIDAY Digital reported that Senator Tsuruho had attended a meeting of the former Unification Church last June, but falsely reported to an LDP investigation that he had “no contacts [with the former Unification Church]. Furthermore, on February 10, it was revealed that his rival Kado also had ties to the former Unification Church.

If we forcefully endorse such people, Nikai will be forced to explain himself. That is why Mr. Nikai was not able to display his signature “hard-headedness” for this one time. In mid-February, the selection committee consisting of local Diet members, including Mr. Nikai, House of Councilors member Hiroshige Seko, and House of Representatives member Masatoshi Ishida, invited Mr. Tsuruho and Mr. Kado to the party headquarters to talk directly with them, but still no decision was made on their official recognition.

In the end, the decision was left to the prefectural federation, and after much wrangling, the decision was made to retain Kado. However, an LDP official expressed some concern.

It is said that the Restoration Party will field a candidate in the supplementary election for Wakayama Prefecture’s first constituency. Under such circumstances, can they win? ……

It seems to me that it would be better to have other decent candidates instead of the two who were in bed with the former Unification Church.