Photo/Illutration Ryu Shionoya, in left background corner, Hakubun Shimomura, center, and Yasutoshi Nishimura, with a face mask, during a Lower House plenary session on April 2. They face disciplinary measures over a political fund scandal. (Takeshi Iwashita)

Blowback against Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is already swelling within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party over the expected penalties against party members over a political fund scandal.

The Party Ethics Committee is expected to decide on disciplinary measures against 39 lawmakers on April 4.

The party is expected to ask Ryu Shionoya, who heads the Abe faction’s 15-member executive board, and Hiroshige Seko, former secretary-general of the LDP’s Upper House caucus, to leave the LDP, sources said April 2.

That would be the strictest punishment issued within the party over the scandal and the second harshest, after expulsion, among the LDP’s eight disciplinary measures.

LDP executives, including Kishida, who is party president, believe that Shionoya and Seko, top Abe faction members of the Lower House and the Upper House, respectively, should be held most responsible for the faction’s yearslong practice of keeping fund-raising party revenues off the books, sources said April 2.

After learning about the likely punishment he faces, Shionoya was quoted as saying: “We should investigate until the truth is uncovered. They are rushing to impose penalties to get the scandal quickly out of the way.”

For years, the Abe and Nikai factions returned party ticket sales that exceeded individual lawmakers’ sales quotas to them without properly reporting the flow of such funds.

The LDP has decided to punish 36 lawmakers who failed to list 5 million yen ($33,000) or more in revenues from their faction’s fund-raising parties on their political fund reports over the five years through 2022.

In addition, Shionoya, as well as Hakubun Shimomura and Yasutoshi Nishimura, both former secretaries-general of the Abe faction, will be penalized for undermining public trust in politics, although their underreported amount was less than 5 million yen.

However, discontent is growing within the LDP partly because Kishida will not face any disciplinary measure.

In January, a former accounting official of the faction that Kishida headed until early December, received a summary indictment for failing to report fund-raising party revenues. The Abe faction’s accountant and the Nikai faction’s former accountant were also charged.

“It would make no sense at all for the prime minister to be let off the hook,” a former Cabinet minister said. “In the next LDP presidential election, I will vote for someone who would come down squarely on Kishida.”

A mid-ranking lawmaker of the Abe faction, who is among the 39 to be punished, complained to Hiroshi Moriyama, chairman of the LDP’s General Council, who has been discussing disciplinary measures with Kishida and other party executives.

“It is unacceptable to draw a line based solely on the amount of money involved and decide on penalties,” the lawmaker said on April 2. “Without the actual situation being clarified, only disciplinary measures have been determined.”

The lawmaker pledged to file a formal complaint within the party once the measures are finalized.

The LDP has also decided not to take any disciplinary action against Toshihiro Nikai, a former party secretary-general, even though his aide was charged over the failure of Nikai’s fund management organization to report 35.26 million yen over the five years.

The amount was the largest among the 82 lawmakers of the Abe and Nikai factions who kept fund-raising party revenues off the books.

Nikai said March 25 that he will not seek re-election in the next Lower House election.

The LDP said it has taken his judgment seriously and decided not to ask the Party Ethics Committee to consider disciplinary measures for him.

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