Shigeru Ishiba Faces Secret Fund Allegations Amid “Akahata Cannon” Controversy in the Abe Faction

Shigeru Ishiba, the new prime minister of Japan, has been criticized by many for being “shaky.

He defeated Sanae Takaichi in the LDP presidential election on September 27 by a decisive vote to take the prime minister’s seat, but he seems to be having a hard time managing the situation.

He was originally called ‘the opposition party within the party.’ When it came time for him to become prime minister, the people around him were not very friendly. When it came time for him to become prime minister, he had no allies around him and was unable to unite the party. As expected, I get the impression that he is being used at the behest of his guardians, former Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide and Secretary General Yutaka Moriyama.

This is the opinion of a reporter in charge of politics for a national newspaper. As for the timing of the general election, the party has retracted its previous position and is now planning to dissolve the Diet on October 9 and hold the election on October 27. However, this, too, is not a good thing.

“This is in line with the wishes of Secretary General Moriyama and Mr. Kan.

As for the Minor Insurance Card, Mr. Ishiba hinted that it would be temporarily used in conjunction with the existing insurance card, but Digital Minister Masaaki Taira said that the policy of ending the issuance of the current insurance card in December “will remain the same.

“There will be no change.

However, Digital Minister Masaaki Taira stated clearly that “there will be no change.

As for the disposition of the backdoor money councilors, some media reported that they would be allowed to run for official recognition and duplicate candidacies. This must have discouraged many citizens. Later, Prime Minister Ishiba’s main announcement was revised to say that there would be a certain number of unapproved candidates, but this gave the impression that the situation was unclear.

According to Prime Minister Ishiba’s explanation, (1) out of the eight levels of disciplinary actions stipulated in the party rules, those who have received more disciplinary actions than non-recognition will be non-recognized, (2) those who have received less disciplinary actions than non-recognition but are still under disciplinary action will be non-recognized, except for those who have fulfilled their accountability in the political ethics committee, and (3) those who have received disciplinary actions that are not as serious as non-recognition will be non-recognized. (4) Other council members who have received disciplinary actions and who are deemed not to have fulfilled their accountability and not to have been fully understood by the local community shall also be deemed as non-recognized. ……

This means that Hirofumi Shimomura, Yasutoshi Nishimura, and Takeshi Takagi, former Abe faction leaders who were suspended from party membership, are now unrecognized. Kōichi Hagiuda, who did not attend the Diet’s political ethics hearings, has also been ruled inadmissible.

“As expected, the LDP is not going to set up ‘assassins’ in the constituencies of unapproved candidates, but the former Abe faction is bitterly complaining that ‘they are completely trying to crush us. The LDP is in a state of internal strife, and depending on the outcome of the election, the “downing of Ishiba” will begin in earnest,” said a source close to the political world.

Prime Minister Ishiba has also declared that members of the LDP who were not listed in the party list for their faction’s political fund parties will not be listed in the proportional list. This is likely to have an unexpected boomerang effect.

The October 6 edition of the Japanese Communist Party’s journal “Shimbun Aka Hata” published an article titled “Ishiba’s faction also has ‘slush fund. The article reported that the LDP’s Suigetsu-kai (Ishiba faction), which the prime minister once led, had failed to record a total of 1.4 million yen over a six-year period in the balance of its political fund parties.

Election Campaign to Shelve His Own Allegations of Back-Funding

Tomoko Tamura, chairperson of the Communist Party of Japan, said at a press conference in the Diet

We, the Japanese Communist Party, have already reported in the “Shimbun Aka Hata” (Red Flag) that the Ishiba faction had a slush fund. We already know that the Ishiba faction had a slush fund. We already know that, don’t we? We already know it, and yet we don’t say a word about it (in the policy statement). What kind of accountability is that?

He continued. He continued

We will continue to debate these issues in the Diet, but representative questions alone will not be enough. What about responsibility for the slush fund case? We need to discuss these issues in the Budget Committee, question by question.”

He appealed to the Diet.

Prime Minister Ishiba said that he and the four party officials, including the secretary-general, “will not be allowed to run for multiple seats in the proportional elections.

“We will not run for the same party in the proportional elections,” he said, cutting off his own candidacy.

However, if the “slush fund scandal” is true, his brave statement may look different from what he said.

Some people are reluctant to read “Shimbun Aka Hata” because it has a strong political party flavor, but it has long been regarded as “not to be underestimated” in the mass media industry. The Bunshun cannon also can be traced back to the “Aka-hata” cannon. The Communist Party, which may be removed from the opposition coalition in the next election, is said to be pushing the “pursuit of the prime minister’s slush fund” to the forefront.

Although it is unlikely that Prime Minister Ishiba will lose the election in his home constituency, his campaign, in which he has put his own “slush fund scandal” on the back burner, is likely to leave a lasting impression due to various “speculations” involved.

What will the public make of Prime Minister Ishiba’s decision to take a risk?