Photo/Illutration Minoru Terada, internal affairs minister, on Nov. 18 (Koichi Ueda)

Yet another Cabinet minister quit after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida refused to endorse the continued presence of Minoru Terada, the internal affairs minister who is embroiled in a scandal over his use of political funds.

Terada submitted his resignation late Nov. 20, becoming the third Cabinet minister to leave in about a month as Kishida continues to battle low support ratings.

Terada has been at the center of relentless attacks from opposition parties since the first in a series of scandals involving his political funds were exposed by the weekly Shukan Bunshun magazine last month.

Opposition Diet members demanded his resignation, asserting he is not fit for office as the post has jurisdiction over the Political Fund Control Law.

Kishida dodged questions on whether he would retain Terada, 64, when asked about it during a news conference in Bangkok on Nov. 19, which he was visiting as part of his Asian tour.

Kishida said instead he will prioritize passage during the current Diet session of an additional supplementary budget and legislation providing relief to victims conned into making hefty donations to the Unification Church, now known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.

The remark was widely taken as him leaning toward Terada’s dismissal as the scandal could tie up precious time in the passage of key agenda items during the extraordinary Diet session scheduled to close on Dec. 10.

Terada’s support group is accused of paying 26.88 million yen ($192,000) as rent on its office between 2012 and 2020. Since the office was located in a building his wife partially owns, critics characterized the payments as “family business” that recycles political funds to his family.

Although Terada insisted that there was no fraudulent activity on his part, he has refused to divulge his wife’s final tax returns to the Diet despite repeated requests from opposition parties.

It also emerged that his political funds reports were flawed. One example was a separate support group that listed a man who died in 2019 as the accountant responsible for political funds reports filed for 2019 and 2020.

Terada’s departure would deal an additional blow to the Kishida Cabinet as two members were effectively dismissed in recent weeks, calling into question Kishida’s responsibility for appointing them.

Before turning to politics, Terada was an elite bureaucrat working at the Finance Ministry.

He represented the Hiroshima No. 5 constituency and was re-elected five times. He belongs to the Kishida faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

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