Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Saturday said that he aims for a stricter political funds control law, following a high-profile money scandal involving factions of the Liberal Democratic Party.
At the regional roundtable dialogue session on political reform held in the city of Kumamoto in response to the scandal, Kishida spoke on the envisaged bill to amend the law.
“By enacting a strict law, we hope to restore public trust,” he said.
Kishida has said the LDP plans to submit the bill during the ongoing parliamentary session. The ruling party is headed by Kishida.
It was the first time Kishida took part in a political reform dialogue session. In light of the scandal, the LDP decided that its senior members, including Kishida, will visit all 47 prefectures to listen to the voices of members of its local branches and others, with the first session of the dialogue held in the city of Kanazawa in late March.
At the start of Saturday’s session, Kishida met with senior officials of the LDP’s Kumamoto prefectural branch.
“I’d like to sincerely apologize as LDP president for creating a great deal of public distrust in politics,” Kishida said to the senior officials. “We must work on rebuilding the party with a sense of crisis.”