Ishiba admits giving gift vouchers to rookie ruling party lawmakers

A person close to Ishiba said, "It was done with good intentions."

I would hope so.

An aide visited the offices of lawmakers elected to the House of Representatives last October to hand out the vouchers as souvenirs before the dinner meeting got underway, but all 15 members later returned them

Since when does 100% of recipients return a souvenir? And some without even opening theirs?

These guys just keep on playing the Japanese people, knowing they can get away with things with impunity.

Graft and Jimin? Well I never!

"This is an unfortunate situation and Mr. Ishiba clearly failed to read the air", announced one voter on condition of anonymity, before reiterating his intention to vote LDP for the rest of his natural life.

Gift vouchers! And what about the one million yen per month "second salary" paid to diet members?

Details here: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220708/p2a/00m/0na/024000c

What other perks are these guys getting from our taxpayers money?

The 'appearance' is the concern given the recent politics in Japan, surely this was just typical congratulatory stuff, and welcome to the world of politics.

BertieWoosterToday  08:59 am JST

Gift vouchers! And what about the one million yen per month "second salary" paid to diet members?

Details here: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220708/p2a/00m/0na/024000c

What other perks are these guys getting from our taxpayers money?

Japanese politician get too much money from taxpayer.

Well now we all know how he got the numbers to roll a sitting prime minister, for a self concocted scandal where police can't even indict a single person.

The LDP truly deserve this dysfunction for electing someone with a 2 times record of deserting the party.

IMHO, Koizumi a go here, he's young enough to not be tainted by scandals, and also young enough to be mentored by elder statesmans and the world is being reshaped, so here's Japan's opportunity to reinvigorate its leadership.

Is this what the Abe faction leverages to push him out of office? Only time will tell.

At first I was thinking something like a 5,000 yen gift certificate to Uniqlo or something but then I read...

A voucher gift was worth 100,000 yen per person, according to participants of the meeting.

Dude!

Like modern politicians in many countries, Ishiba is shameless simply because he won't be arrested and end up in jail.

Gotta keep that money train going…

Next stop, steak dinners!

HopeSpringsEternalToday  09:04 am JST

The 'appearance' is the concern given the recent politics in Japan, surely this was just typical congratulatory stuff, and welcome to the world of politics.

It's sleaze, plain and simple, and deeply ingrained in the culture of the LDP. You're clearly okay with it though.