He appoints to the cabinet mostly close aides, friends, and second-generation or third-generation legislators like himself. The same problem keeps being repeated because when an issue arises, he has his mind only on having those involved resign to draw a curtain on the affair.

Yes. That's why the LDP is so inept and corrupt.

The same problem keeps being repeated because when an issue arises, he has his mind only on having those involved resign to draw a curtain on the affair.

Not to mention trying to draw attention away from the fact that he's often one of the people involved.

Would be nice to see a law that outlaws serving lawmakers children from entering Parliament. Give the kids an opportunity to branch out on their own rather than relying on huge tax payer funded salery. But that will never happen the rulers must rule for generations as it has always been.

How he survived Moritomo beggars belief.

Ultimately it is down to the Japanese public, if they didn’t vote for them they wouldn’t be there.

And that's why he's a 'former' minister. Happens in governments all around the world. Dissent brings dismissal.

Any corruption within Japan's government, especially at higher levels should be eliminated . . . that is why a regular change in leadership can help prevent corruption.

CrickyJuly 23  12:14 pm JST

Would be nice to see a law that outlaws serving lawmakers children from entering Parliament.

I think what they need to do is ban inheriting political funds - the big problem is really that these second or third generation politicians have a huge financial advantage and they've also got the candidate selection process stitched up. Where I live the LDP incumbent retired and his son ran in the last lower house election. He lost but he's head of the local LDP chapter so he's just going to run again, and the party is just going to tolerate this instead of opening up the selection process to people who are probably a lot better qualified. Deeply flawed and corrupt, but nothing's going to change because it suits LDP hereditary oligarchs like Abe just fine.

englisc aspyrgendJuly 23  07:25 pm JST

Ultimately it is down to the Japanese public, if they didn’t vote for them they wouldn’t be there.

They didn't, really. Abe got a commanding majority in his over-represented Yamaguchi constituency, where I suppose most people are a bit backward, but he's Prime Minister because he leads the party with the majority of Diet seats and a lot of his fellow party members won with less than 50% of the vote in their areas. One of the reasons the LDP has so many seats is that they represent depopulated rural areas where votes are worth two votes in big cities. In fact in the 2017 general election the LDP only got 33% of the popular vote, so it has very little to do with what the public actually wants.

Simon, if that is true then why is there not massive pressure inside and outside parliament for change to the constituency boundaries? Or is there and it is just not reported so I wouldn’t know of it?

Forgot to add if there were that much discrepancy in the UK you would hear the uproar in Japan!