Faction of Japanese PM announces its dissolution due to financial scandal

The faction of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida "Kotikai" officially announced its dissolution, Azernews reports, citing the Kyodo news agency.

This decision was made at an extraordinary meeting of the faction on Tuesday. The leadership of the faction explained to its ordinary members the reasons why the faction was dissolved.

At the same time, Kishida himself, who headed it until December last year, and the second person of the faction, Secretary General of the Government Yoshimasa Hayashi, were not present at the meeting. Kishida resigned from office in December when it became known that his faction was also involved in a scandal related to unfair financial reporting.

Earlier, the department of the Tokyo Prosecutor's Office opened a criminal case against the faction's accountant: for three years of work since 2018, the amount of funds not noted in financial documents from holding party meetings amounted to 30 million yen (about 200 thousand dollars).

At the same time, in 2021 and 2022, when a new accountant began working in the faction, no defects were revealed. Also, the Kishida faction did not practice a system of "kickbacks", when the surplus of money earned from party meetings was returned to deputies, but was not reflected either in their financial statements or in the documents of the faction.