Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has begun interviewing senior lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Abe faction to determine disciplinary measures over a political fund scandal.
Kishida met separately with Ryu Shionoya, who heads the Abe faction's 15-member executive board, and Hakubun Shimomura, a former secretary-general of the faction, at a Tokyo hotel on March 26.
The prime minister is also expected to hear from Hiroshige Seko, former secretary-general of the LDP's Upper House caucus, and Yasutoshi Nishimura, a former secretary-general of the Abe faction, on March 27.
Kishida is focusing on Shionoya, Shimomura, Seko and Nishimura because they met in August 2022 to discuss the practice of returning part of proceeds from the faction's fund-raising parties to member lawmakers.
In April that year, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who headed the eponymous faction, told the four lawmakers, who were leaders in the faction, to stop funneling party ticket sales that exceeded individual lawmakers' quotas back to those lawmakers.
However, the faction decided to continue the practice after the meeting in August, a month after Abe was shot to death.
All four lawmakers denied any knowledge about the decision-making process during hearings at the Diet's Deliberative Council on Political Ethics earlier this month.
"For some reason, it was decided that the funnel-back practice would remain in place after the four got together in August," a senior LDP official said. "Someone (among the four) could have called for scrapping the practice."
The four are expected to be slapped with severe disciplinary measures, such as suspension of party membership and non-endorsement in elections, possibly in early April.
Among the LDP's eight disciplinary measures, suspension of party membership is the third harshest, and non-endorsement in elections the fourth.
In the political fund scandal, former accounting officials of the Abe, Nikai and Kishida factions and three Abe faction lawmakers who received large amounts of unreported political funds from their faction were charged in January.
LDP leaders interviewed about 90 lawmakers who belong to the three factions, including Shionoya, Shimomura, Seko and Nishimura, over the scandal in February.
Toshihiro Nikai, a former LDP secretary-general and head of the Nikai faction, said March 25 that he will not seek re-election in the next Lower House election, effectively pre-empting an expected severe disciplinary measure from the party.
Some close to Kishida had expected that Shionoya, Shimomura, Seko and Nishimura would follow in Nikai's footsteps before the party metes out disciplinary measures.
At least one of the four lawmakers remains defiant.
"It is not right to decide a disciplinary measure based on the atmosphere of public opinion calling for severe punishment," he said. "The decision should be based on evidence.