Kishida mulls dropping Latin America trip amid fund scandal

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is considering forgoing a plan to visit Brazil and other Latin American nations in January amid a political fundraising scandal involving his party’s biggest faction, a government source said Sunday.

The move comes as Kishida, who doubles as the head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, needs to pull together his political foothold following allegations that the faction created hundreds of millions of yen in slush funds in recent years through undeclared revenues earned from fundraising parties.

Kishida was expected to make his first visit to Latin America as prime minister in January, as Tokyo seeks to enhance cooperation with developing and emerging countries in dealing with global issues. The trip was expected to last about 10 days.

In the wake of the scandal, Kishida, who was already struggling with sluggish Cabinet approval rates, has vowed to create a new organization inside the party to push for reforms such as improving the transparency of political funds.

Traveling abroad could have put the talks on reforms on hold and could have drawn criticism from the public.

Prosecutors have been questioning veteran LDP lawmakers suspected of having a role in the fundraising scandal on a voluntary basis, including former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno and former trade minister Yasutoshi Nishimura.

The LDP faction that is heavily under scrutiny is the one previously led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.