Photo/Illutration Ruling party lawmaker Masaki Ogushi (Akira Nakano)

Masaki Ogushi, the Cabinet Office vice minister responsible for consumer affairs, acknowledged signing a “policy pact” with an organization affiliated with the Unification Church but denied receiving any election support from the group.

Ogushi, who is also vice minister for digital affairs, told the Lower House Health, Labor and Welfare Committee on Oct 26 that the policy agreement in question was dated Oct. 3, 2021, before the Lower House was dissolved for a general election.

He is at least the second lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to admit to signing such a pact.

The Asahi Shimbun first reported that affiliated groups of the Unification Church, now formally called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, had approached LDP candidates in national elections and asked them to sign policy pacts in exchange for campaign support.

However, Ogushi said he received no help from the church or the organization in the 2021 Lower House election.

“I neither held a rally during the election campaign nor tried to mobilize supporters,” he said.

He said the pact was titled “Confirmation of Recommendations,” and it included policies that were “close to those of the LDP,” such as revising the Constitution.

Ogushi said the policy agreement also promoted construction of “the Japan-Korea Tunnel,” an undersea project pushed by the church.

“I think I told (organization members) on the spot that (the tunnel plan) was unrealistic and that I cannot agree to it.”

When asked how and why he signed the pact, Ogushi said that one of his supporters, who has ties to the church affiliate, asked him to “speak about national policies at an event.”

“I went to the event myself because it was before the election,” Ogushi said.

At the event, he said, he was asked to sign a “recommendation document.”

Ogushi said that although he thought it was an abrupt request, he signed the document after looking at it.

He told the Diet committee that he did not immediately disclose his signing of the policy pact because “I couldn’t locate it until yesterday.”

After the shooting death of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in July, ties between the church and lawmakers, mainly from the LDP, have been exposed.

An LDP survey into such relations did not mention the policy pacts.

LDP Lower House member Hiroaki Saito has also said that he signed a policy pact with a church-affiliated group.

An expert committee under the Consumer Affairs Agency has called for a government investigation into the shady business practices of the Unification Church, including sales of expensive items to followers and others that supposedly fend off bad luck.

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