Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other ruling party leaders met with the head of the former Unification Church shortly before the 2013 Upper House election, which ended up solidifying Abe’s hold on power.

The meeting was held at the president’s reception room in the Liberal Democratic Party’s headquarters. Abe was LDP president and prime minister at the time.

The Asahi Shimbun obtained several photographs showing Abe standing side by side with Eiji Tokuno, the president of what is now called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.

Other pictures show Abe seated and talking with Tokuno and others.

Song Yong-cheon, head of the general assembly of the national federation of blessed families, a group related to the church, was also present.

Song later served as world president of the church.

Hirokazu Ota, then chair of the International Federation for Victory over Communism, a conservative political organization that is also connected to the church, attended the meeting along with two executives.

On the LDP side, Koichi Hagiuda, a former economy minister who was then a special assistant to Abe, and Nobuo Kishi, a former defense minister who is Abe’s brother, attended.

These are the first known photographs of Abe with church leaders at LDP headquarters.

In official records concerning the prime minister’s activities, Abe’s meeting at LDP headquarters took place on Sunday, June 30, 2013, starting at “1:09 p.m. with LDP lawmakers Koichi Hagiuda and Nobuo Kishi.”

This was the only day in Abe’s tenure when he met with both Hagiuda and Kishi at party headquarters.

Several sources told The Asahi Shimbun the purpose of the meeting was to confirm that the church would use its nationwide organizations to support Tsuneo Kitamura of the LDP in the proportional representation part of the Upper House election held on July 21, 2013.

Kitamura was elected for the first time in that election.

After Abe was assassinated in July 2022 apparently over his close ties to the church, the LDP ordered lawmakers to self-report their relationships with the church.

Kitamura reported that he had received volunteer election support from the church side.

Kitamura served as head of the Sankei Shimbun newspaper’s political news department. He is a native of Yamaguchi Prefecture, where Abe’s constituency was located, and is said to have had a close friendship with Abe for many years.

In the proportional representation system, seats are allocated according to the total number of votes cast for each political party. Winners are determined by the order of the number of votes cast for each individual name within the party.

Kitamura was making his first attempt in a Diet election and lacked nationwide name recognition. He needed to accumulate a considerable number of votes to gain a seat.

According to the sources, it is highly unusual for top officials of organizations related to the church, let along the church president, to attend a meeting with a politician.

A direct request from Abe would make it easier for the church to strongly urge its followers across the country to vote in the election, the sources said.

An estimated 60,000 to 100,000 church followers could cast votes.

SOLIDIFYING POWER

In the Lower House election held in December 2012, the LDP won a landslide victory to take power from the Democratic Party of Japan. The second Abe administration was then inaugurated.

But the LDP at the time did not hold solid majorities in both Diet chambers.

So Abe set a goal of gaining control over the Upper House in the 2013 election to create a stable base for long-term rule.

The LDP won 65 of the 121 seats up for grabs in the election. The era of “Abe’s single dominance” had begun.

In the proportional representation part, the LDP won 18 seats. Kitamura placed 15th after receiving about 142,000 votes for his individual name.

The line of elimination was about 77,000 votes.

The sources said the 2013 Upper House election showed that the organizational votes of the church were particularly powerful in proportional representation.

The assassination of Abe highlighted the relationship between politicians and the church, as well as the organization’s donations.

In August 2022, Toshimitsu Motegi, the LDP’s secretary-general, denied any systemic relationship between the party and the church.

“The party instructed relevant departments to check and confirmed that the party has had no relationship (with the church) whatsoever,” Motegi said.

The LDP did not conduct an investigation into the lawmakers’ contacts with the church, leaving the matter to the “self-inspection” of each lawmaker.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also refused to conduct an investigation into the church’s connections with Abe, saying in the Diet, “Now that he has passed, there are limits to what we can confirm.”

The Asahi Shimbun asked the LDP secretary-general’s office about the 2013 meeting and the relationship between the LDP and the church.

“The background and results of the inspections instruction to the party’s Diet members are as published,” the office said in a written reply. “The party’s internal administrative procedures and other things are not disclosed.”

The Asahi Shimbun also asked the church about the content and circumstances of the 2013 meeting.

The church replied in writing that Tokuno and Ota have retired.

The church also said Song now belongs to the South Korean headquarters and, therefore, the church “cannot answer questions about the situation at the time.”

The International Federation for Victory over Communism has not responded to Asahi inquiries.

At the Diet members’ building in Tokyo on Sept. 11, Hagiuda was shown the photos of the 2013 meeting and told The Asahi Shimbun, “That’s me.”

However, he added, “My office checked the schedule at the time, but there was no record of the meeting.”

He also said he has no recollection of the meeting.

Asked whether the LDP asked church leaders to support Kitamura in the election, Hagiuda said, “I don’t know.”

The Asahi Shimbun asked several aides of Abe about the meeting and the photographs.

But they all replied. “I don’t know.”

Kishi retired from the Diet in 2023 and is currently recuperating from an illness.

His aides at the time of the meeting now work for the office of Kishi’s son, Nobuchiyo Kishi, a Lower House member of the LDP.

Nobuchiyo’s office said in a written response to the Asahi, “We asked aides who belong to the office (about the meeting), but none of them could confirm it.”

(This article was written by Nobuya Sawa, senior staff writer, and Yosuke Takashima.)