(Update) LDP's Nikai Not to Run in Next Lower House Election

   Tokyo, March 25 (Jiji Press)--Toshihiro Nikai, former secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, on Monday expressed his intention of not running in the next election for the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, the country's parliament.
   "I deeply apologize" for causing distrust in politics, the 85-year-old LDP heavyweight told a press conference at the party's headquarters in Tokyo, referring to the high-profile slush funds scandal involving LDP factions, including the one led by himself. "I will clarify my political responsibility."
   In the scandal, a former chief accountant of the Nikai faction has been indicted without arrest for allegedly failing to record some of revenues from faction fundraising parties in political funds statements. A secretary to Nikai has faced a summary indictment over the scandal.
   At the press conference, Nikai, elected to the Lower House from the No. 3 constituency in the western prefecture of Wakayama, said he has told Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, also president of the LDP, over the phone that he would not run in the next Lower House poll.
   As for his successor in the Wakayama No. 3 constituency, Nikai said only that he is leaving the matter to local LDP officials. He won a Lower House seat for the first time in the 1983 election, running from the former Wakayama No. 2 constituency. He has been elected to the chamber 13 times.

(2024/03/25-14:05)

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