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2025 October 8 - 14 [POLITICS]

Slush-fund lawmaker makes comeback to Takaichi-led LDP officials

The Liberal Democratic Party’s new president, Takaichi Sanae, unveiled the party’s executive leadership on October 7. Among her appointments is former chair of the LDP Policy Research Council Hagiuda Koichi, who had been involved in the former Abe faction’s slush-fund scandal, as the party’s acting secretary general.

Hagiuda was one of the Abe faction leaders. He failed to report a total of 27.28 million yen in political funds between 2018 and 2022. In August of this year, his policy secretary was indicted for falsifying the books in violation of the Political Funds Control Act. Despite being denied party endorsement for the 2024 general election campaign due to his involvement in the off-the-book money scandal, he received 20 million yen in tax-funded subsidies from the LDP headquarters during the campaign.

A Kyodo News survey found that 77.5% of respondents were opposed to the appointment of lawmakers involved in the creation of unregistered funds to key LDP posts or cabinet ministers. However, the new leadership says it sees no problem with Hagiuda’s appointment.

Takaichi appointed: Aso Taro who is the supreme advisor of the Aso faction as LDP deputy president; Suzuki Shun’ichi, an Aso faction member, as LDP secretary general; and Arimura Haruko, also an Aso faction member and former Minister of State for Measures for Declining Birthrate, as LDP General Council chief. These appointments prominently favor the Aso faction.

Former Economic Security Minister Kobayashi Takayuki, who competed against Takaichi in the LDP presidential election, will take up a post as head of the LDP Policy Research Council. Former National Public Safety Commission Chair Furuya Keiji, who endorsed Takaichi during her presidential race, will become LDP Election Bureau chief.

Many members of the new leadership belong to the Nippon Kaigi Dietmembers’ Council which is guided by the rightwing constitutional revisionist Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi). They include Aso, Arimura, Furuya, and Hagiuda. Most of the council members take part in the Dietmembers’ group affiliated with the Shinto Political League which opposes the selective use of separate surnames for married couples and seeks to revive the state Shinto system.

Takaichi, when she was a cabinet minister, worshiped at Yasukuni Shrine which glorifies Japan’s past war of aggression and its colonial rule over Asian nations. She still serves as vice-chair of the Nippon Kaigi Dietmembers’ Council.

This new leadership lineup ignores public anger over the illegal moneymaking scam and remains fixated on an adverse revision of the Constitution. It represents a return to the politics of the late Prime Minister Abe Shinzo who advocated “breaking away from the postwar regime” and continued to visit the controversial shrine while in office.