Three senior LDP officials resign amid Japan's political funds scandal

TOKYO -- Three heavyweight members of Japan's main ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) resigned from party leadership posts on Thursday amid a political funds scandal involving the party's largest faction, local media reported.

The LDP's policy chief Koichi Hagiuda, parliamentary affairs chief Tsuyoshi Takagi and Upper House Secretary-General Hiroshige Seko tendered resignations on the day, all of whom are members of the party's largest faction led by late Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, public broadcaster NHK said.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met with Natsuo Yamaguchi, leader of the LDP's coalition partner Komeito, in the afternoon on the successors, the report said.

Kishida told Yamaguchi that the personnel changes to LDP officials will be carried out on or after Dec. 22, taking into account the schedule to decide a draft budget for the next fiscal year, it added.

The political upheaval came as the LDP has recently faced scrutiny amid accusations that its largest faction failed to declare hundreds of millions of yen in fundraising events revenue in political funding reports, possibly pooling secret funds.

Earlier in the day, all four cabinet ministers belonging to the Abe faction, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ichiro Miyashita and Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications Junji Suzuki, submitted resignations, according to media reports.

The mass resignations leave the LDP in the very unusual situation of having no representatives from the party's largest faction within the cabinet, Kyodo News said.