Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba holds a Cabinet meeting at his office on Oct. 4. (Takeshi Iwashita)

Facing criticism, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said all Liberal Democratic Party members who were involved in the fund-raising scandal will be omitted from the party’s proportional representation list in the next Lower House election.

This means they must win in their single-seat districts to remain or become Diet members in the Lower House election expected on Oct. 27.

LDP leadership had planned to endorse all candidates linked to the political funding scandal in the election, according to sources. However, public outcry was strong and opposition from within the party itself emerged, they said.

Ishiba said on Oct. 6 that the party will withhold election endorsements for lawmakers who have yet to take responsibility for their part in the scandal.

“Candidates must fulfill their accountability in their electoral districts, with their back against the wall, and leave their fates to the judgment of the voters,” Ishiba told reporters on Oct. 6.

Under the Lower House election system, candidates who do not win in single-seat electoral districts can still gain a place in the Diet through proportional representation, depending on where they are placed on their party’s list of candidates.

According to Ishiba, all unendorsed candidates and LDP members who failed to report revenue in the fund-raising scandal will not be placed on the LDP’s proportional representation list.

Ishiba himself pledged on Oct. 6 to remove his name from the list.

Four key LDP officials, including Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama and Election Strategy Committee chair Shinjiro Koizumi, will also run without being listed on the proportional representation ballot.

The LDP in April punished 39 lawmakers tied to the scandal on the party’s eight-tier disciplinary scale. Only five of them received penalties harsher than the fourth-level punishment, which entails a loss of LDP endorsement in elections.

These five members will not be endorsed in the upcoming election. They include former education minister Hakubun Shimomura, former economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura and former LDP Diet Affairs Committee chair Tsuyoshi Takagi, all of whom were penalized with a suspension of their party membership.

Even if their punishment was less severe than the loss of party endorsement, LDP lawmakers with ongoing penalties will not receive endorsements unless they have fulfilled their accountability requirements at the Diet’s Political Ethics Hearing Committee, according to the new plan.

Under this policy, former LDP Policy Research Council chair Koichi Hagiuda, former reconstruction minister Katsuei Hirasawa and Lower House lawmaker Hiromi Mitsubayashi would have to run as independents in the upcoming election.

All three are currently prohibited from holding senior positions in the LDP for one year.

Additionally, any other lawmaker penalized for the scandal may not receive endorsements for the election if they are considered to have failed to demonstrate sufficient accountability to regain trust in their constituencies.

(This article was written by Kohei Morioka and Haruka Suzuki.)

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