Japanese Ex-Justice Minister Kawai Arrested for Vote-Buying

(Bloomberg) -- Japanese prosecutors arrested a former justice minister and his lawmaker wife on vote-buying allegations Thursday, in a fresh blow for troubled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Katsuyuki Kawai resigned from the cabinet in October, less than two months after being appointed, following allegations in a magazine that he was linked to illicit payments made to local politicians and potential voters during his wife Anri Kawai’s successful first campaign for an upper house seat last July.

“It is most regrettable that serving lawmakers who were members of our party were arrested,” Abe told reporters. “I am keenly aware of my responsibility for the past appointment of the justice minister. I apologize sincerely to the people.”

Anri Kawai has confirmed that she received an unusually large subsidy of 150 million yen ($1.4 million) from Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party ahead of her election. She and her husband have both denied breaking the law, according to the Sankei newspaper and Fuji TV.

The two were arrested on allegations of handing a total of about 25 million yen in cash to local political figures in a bid to secure votes for Anri, Kyodo News reported.

When asked about the reports of the arrests, a spokesman for the Tokyo prosecutors’ office said it would hold a news conference later in the day and declined to comment further. Officials at the two lawmakers’ respective offices did not respond to telephone calls put in by Bloomberg.

Abe, Japan’s longest-serving premier, has seen his support rate fall to its lowest in years in some recent polls, with many respondents saying they saw his government doing too little, too late in the battle against the virus.

But Abe has proved adept at deflecting the fallout from ministerial missteps since taking office for the second time in 2012, as well as benefiting from a splintered opposition. His cabinet survived the simultaneous resignations of two cabinet ministers in 2014 and he went on to win a general election two months later.

A secretary to Anri Kawai was handed a suspended prison sentence Wednesday for paying campaign staffers more than the permitted amount, national public broadcaster NHK said. The verdict may lead to her election victory being nullified, the report from NHK added. Both lawmakers were no longer members of the LDP, Abe said.

With Abe’s support fading and the end of his term as leader just over a year away, rivals are increasingly jostling for position. The arrests could help Shigeru Ishiba, the public’s favored successor, who has distanced himself from the Abe government.

Opposition parties have not been able to pick up speed as Abe has slipped in the polls, and even the largest groups have support rates in the single digits.

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