Asia-Pacific
Japan PM's aide may be charged for frauds: media
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-11-24 16:27
TOKYO: A former aide to Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama may be charged with falsifying political funding records, the Asahi newspaper said on Tuesday, a development that could dent support for the government ahead of elections next year.
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 Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama inspects a debate between government appointed panels and bureaucrats over spending cuts at makeshift offices in a gym in Tokyo November 24, 2009. [Agencies] |
If Hatoyama's Democratic Party fails to win a majority in the 2010 upper house election, it will have to maintain an awkward coalition with two small parties, with whom it differs on security and other policies, in order to pass bills smoothly.
The scandal has plagued Hatoyama since before the Democrats trounced the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party in August's lower house elections but analysts have said it was likely he would survive any fallout from it.
The Asahi said the charges may come after the current session of parliament ends, which could be November 30 or slightly later.
The top cabinet spokesman said on Tuesday the government would take no action on the matter.
"This is a personal matter," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano told reporters. "The prime minister will decide for himself how to deal with it."
Hatoyama, one of Japan's richest politicians, has acknowledged the secretary filed false reports, including claims of donations received from people who were deceased, but he said the money involved was his own.
A staff member at Hatoyama's office said he did not know the whereabouts of the former secretary, who was dismissed in June.
No evidence has been found to show that Hatoyama was directly involved in the falsification, which involves more than 200 million yen ($2.3 million) in funds, the Asahi said.
A poll published by the Mainichi newspaper on Tuesday showed support for Hatoyama's government at 64 percent, in line with other media surveys and high compared with previous administrations.
Opinion was split in the poll over the importance of the funding scandal, with 41 percent of those polled by the Mainichi saying it was, while 46 percent said it was not.
But more than two thirds of the respondents to a separate poll in the conservative Sankei newspaper on Tuesday said they were not happy with the way he had handled the problem.
Hatoyama, who took over as party leader after his predecessor Ichiro Ozawa was forced to resign in another scandal, has also apologized for being careless in failing to declare about $800,000 worth of income from share sales in 2008.
