There was a scheme when Chairman Mori was in office” and “Kishida will be ousted from his position as Prime Minister” Former Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Hirofumi Shimomura, let loose with a big speech.

On March 25, former LDP Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology Hirofumi Shimomura (69) was eloquent. When he stood up to explain the issue of slush funds from political fund parties at the Political Ethics Committee on March 18, he repeatedly stated, “I don’t know” or “I don’t know. On the day of the meeting, he was very smooth and revealed “new facts” one after another.

Before introducing Mr. Shimomura’s outburst, let us take a quick look back at what he has said and done so far regarding the slush fund issue. According to Yasutoshi Nishimura, 61, a former Abe Faction official, told the Political Ethics Committee, in April 2010, at a meeting of Abe Faction executives, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the chairman of the Abe Faction, proposed the suspension of kickbacks for exceeding the quota for faction party ticket sales. The proposal was temporarily dropped, but after the death of former Prime Minister Abe, there were calls from within the faction to reinstate it, so in August, a meeting was held among four executives, including Nishimura, Shimomura, Tate Shioya (74), and Hiroshige Seko (61), to discuss the issue. No decision was reached at that meeting, but the kickbacks were restored in August.

Meanwhile, Shimomura held a press conference in January of this year and said that “someone” at an Abe faction executive meeting in August 2010 had stepped forward with the idea of kickbacks for exceeding the faction party ticket sales quota by adding the amount to the party sales of individual lawmakers, but the Political Ethics Commission rejected the idea. However, when asked by LDP member Yosei Ide (46) who this person was, he simply replied, “I don’t remember.

At the same hearing, Manabu Terada, 47, a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), referred to reports that Yoshiro Mori, 86, met with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, 66, after Abe’s death and asked him to appoint five influential members of Abe’s faction, the so-called “five men. Referring to reports that Mr. Mori had a great deal of influence on the faction’s management, he said, “I suspect that Mr. Mori is behind the ‘five members,'” and “I suspect that kickbacks began with the revision of the Political Funds Control Law in 1999, when Mr. Mori was president of the Abe faction (then known as the Mori faction). Shimomura responded, “I am not aware of it,” and “I don’t know.

Yasuhiro Nakagawa, 56, a member of the New Komeito Party, pointed out that in 2005 the Shizuoka Shimbun had reported allegations of kickbacks by the Abe faction (then the Mori faction). When asked if he really did not know about the kickbacks, Shimomura replied, “My constituency is Tokyo. I don’ t think any of the Tokyo media reported such a thing.

Shimomura, who was not included in the five-member panel and was therefore in a better position to speak out, was seen as a key figure in resolving the kickback issue, but his repeated refusal to acknowledge the existence of the kickback issue was widely discouraged.

However, Shimomura, who had decided to keep quiet about the issue at the Diet proceedings, spoke eloquently about the slush fund problem at the Young Man’s Hakubun meeting.