Photo/Illutration Liberal Democratic Party Lower House member Toshitaka Ooka meets with reporters on March 21. (Takeshi Iwashita)

The practice of prime ministers handing out gift vouchers dates back at least more than a decade to a period after Shinzo Abe returned the Liberal Democratic Party to power in 2012. 

Some ruling party politicians said Abe presented gift certificates to them after they were first elected to the Lower House in December that year. 

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba presented gift certificates worth 100,000 yen ($670) to 15 first-time LDP lawmakers prior to a dinner with them at his official residence on March 3.

Ishiba’s predecessor, Fumio Kishida, also distributed certificates for the same amount to parliamentary secretaries around the time of a social gathering with them in 2022.

Toshitaka Ooka, an LDP Lower House member, told reporters on March 21 that he was invited to a social gathering with Abe held at his official residence after he won his first seat in 2012.

Ooka said he received vouchers “like gift certificates” worth about 100,000 yen after the gathering.

In an interview with The Asahi Shimbun, a former Lower House lawmaker who was first elected in 2012 also admitted to having received gift certificates in connection with a meal at the Prime Minister’s Official Residence.

A secretary for Abe delivered the vouchers to the lawmaker’s office in the Diet members’ building as was the case with gift certificates from Ishiba and Kishida.

In the Lower House election in 2012, 119 LDP politicians won their first seats.

According to a record of the prime minister’s daily activities published by The Asahi Shimbun, Abe held four luncheon meetings with first-time LDP Lower House members at the Prime Minister’s Official Residence between May and June 2013.

Yoshihide Suga, chief Cabinet secretary under Abe, attended all the sessions.

At an Upper House Budget Committee session on March 21, Taiga Ishikawa of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan asked Ishiba if he knew that prime ministers had customarily doled out gift certificates to LDP lawmakers.

Ishiba said he had heard about such a practice secondhand as a long-time Diet member.

“But I cannot comment because I have no confirmation,” he said. “I am not in a position to know or confirm if it was a custom.”

Hideya Sugio, another CDP Upper House member, said Ishiba must ascertain how successive prime ministers have given out money.

However, Ishiba would not commit to such an investigation.

He only said the LDP will make an appropriate judgment.

(This article was compiled from reports by Anri Takahashi and Mika Kuniyoshi.)

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