Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks to reporters in Miyada, Nagano Prefecture, on March 15. (Pool)

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba discussed politics at a private dinner he hosted for 15 first-time ruling party lawmakers and dispensed advice although he denied the event was a political activity. 

The 15 Lower House members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party were invited to the function, which started at the Prime Minister’s Official Residence at 6:33 p.m. on March 3.

Ishiba, who was first elected to the Lower House from Tottori Prefecture in 1986, spoke about his years as a rookie lawmaker, according to participants. 

“In those days, I frequently took overnight trains to travel to my constituency and back,” he said. “I was told that the job for a first-term lawmaker was to win a second term.”

Ishiba said he enjoys elections.

“I expect you to devote yourselves to campaigns so that you will like elections, too,” he said.

Ishiba has come under fire for doling out 100,000 yen ($670) gift certificates to the 15 lawmakers during the day on March 3 as a “souvenir” of the dinner.

He argues that the money does not constitute a "political activity" donation to politicians prohibited under the Political Fund Control Law.

At the dinner, the first-time lawmakers changed seats to talk with Ishiba in turn.

“We must win the upcoming Upper House election,” the prime minister told one of them.

Ishiba advised another to become familiar with policy issues.

“It is important to attend a session of the (party’s) policy divisions,” he said. “You cannot understand any policy if you join a policy division in your fifth or sixth term."

The 15 participants were all elected to the lower chamber in October after Ishiba became prime minister.

“We are ‘Ishiba children,’” one lawmaker said toward the end of the dinner. “We are all members of the Ishiba faction.”

The prime minister currently does not lead any intraparty faction.

Asked about the intent of the gathering at an Upper House Budget Committee session on March 14, Ishiba said, “It was not so that everyone would identify with Ishiba’s political credo and work together.”

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, as well as Keiichiro Tachibana and Kazuhiko Aoki, deputy chief Cabinet secretaries, also attended the function.

The dinner featured mitten crabs and wild game meat, which are specialties of the Sanin region, home to the constituencies of Ishiba and Aoki, among other dishes.

Ishiba told the Budget Committee session that the event cost 15,000 yen per guest and that he paid the full amount out of his pocket.

Each lawmaker posed for a ceremonial photograph with Ishiba before the dinner ended in a little more than two hours.

(This article was written by Hayato Jinno and Doni Tani.)

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