DPJ to convene lower house ethics council to summon Ozawa

Sunday 12th December, 03:02 PM JST

TOKYO —

The leadership of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan plans to convene the House of Representatives political ethics council next week with the aim of deciding to summon DPJ bigwig Ichiro Ozawa for deliberations involving alleged falsification of political funds reports by his fund management body, DPJ sources said Sunday.

A session of the lower house deliberative council to which Ozawa is expected to be summoned will likely be arranged for January, before the start of the regular Diet session, the sources said.

With next week’s council session, the DPJ aims to show it is tackling the problem of politics and money in order to win cooperation from opposition parties such as the New Komeito party, the sources said. But Ozawa is not expected to attend the session.

At a meeting of DPJ executives Monday, Secretary General Katsuya Okada will seek approval for the plan to convene the ethics council to summon Ozawa after the leadership agrees to entrust the party’s No. 2 man to deal with the matter, according to the sources.

Although lawmakers close to Ozawa, including the DPJ’s House of Councillors caucus leader Azuma Koshiishi, are likely to object to the plan, Okada and other executives believe they can effectively win their approval in the end, the sources said.

If, however, Okada fails to win approval from all the executives in the first place, Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s influence could be open to question as he had put the secretary general in charge of handling the scandal.

Okada told reporters in Yamaguchi city on Saturday that if Ozawa cannot decide on his own to appear before the Diet for questioning, then the party ‘‘must express its will.’‘

On the possibility that Ozawa supporters might object, Okada said, ‘‘We need to live up to people’s expectations even if it involves risks.’‘

But there appear to be rifts within the party, as Wakio Mitsui, a senior vice minister for land, infrastructure, transport and tourism, criticized Okada for being ‘‘disqualified as secretary general.’‘

Meanwhile, Ozawa defended himself in a meeting of DPJ politicians Saturday in Echizen, Fukui Prefecture, saying ‘‘There is nothing at all in my attitude and life as a politician about which I have to feel remorseful.’‘

Depending on how things develop at Monday’s DPJ executive meeting, Okada is prepared to gain the leadership’s approval even through a majority vote among members present, according to the sources.

Although the party’s rules do not stipulate how its executives are to make their decisions, most moves have been made unanimously thus far. ‘‘There has been no case in which a decision was made by majority vote,’’ a DPJ member said.

Squeezing out a decision by the party’s executives before taking the case to the lower house political ethics council is seen as an important step because it would enable the DPJ leadership to take actions such as urging Ozawa to leave the party in the event he refuses to attend the council’s deliberations, the sources said.

The DPJ has 14 executives, including Kan, Okada and Koshiishi. But Kan, who is also DPJ president, rarely takes part in his party’s executive meetings and is also expected to skip the gathering on Monday.