Society

Japan's main ruling party under pressure as two faction offices raided

TOKYO, Dec 20 (NHK) - Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio is facing increasing pressure over a scandal involving his main ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Two LDP factions are suspected of not reporting some revenue collected from ticket sales for fundraising events. Tokyo prosecutors searched their offices Tuesday.

The Abe and Nikai factions are suspected of paying kickbacks to offices of member lawmakers who sold tickets in excess of their quota. It has suspected the factions did not record those amounts as revenue in their political fund reports -- a possible violation of political funds control law.

Offices of Abe faction lawmakers are estimated to have received unrecorded funds worth about 3.5 million dollars over five years.

The former secretary of a lawmaker in the group tells NHK the faction explicitly told him not to include the kickback in the lawmaker's political fund report. ...continue reading

Source: ANNnewsCH

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