Japan’s New Leader to Face Campaign Inquiry

December 3, 2009

By MARTIN FACKLER

TOKYO — Tokyo prosecutors will ask Japan’s prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, for a written explanation of his role in millions of dollars of improperly reported political donations, major Japanese newspapers reported, expanding a scandal that has dogged his fledgling government.

But the reported decision to ask for a written account, instead of summoning the prime minister for direct questioning, also suggests that the investigation may be nearing its close without significantly damaging Mr. Hatoyama’s popularity, political analysts said.

According to the reports, prosecutors are also closely examining the role of one of the prime minister’s former political secretaries in the scandal, which involves some $3 million of Mr. Hatoyama’s own money and another $9 million given to him by his mother. The reports did not give the source of their information, but it appeared to come from prosecutors, who routinely leak information to major media here during investigations.

A spokesman for the Tokyo prosecutors’ office refused to comment on the inquiry.

While some analysts have speculated whether Mr. Hatoyama could eventually be forced to resign over the scandal, the dominant view here now is that he will likely end up largely unscathed. That is because the investigation has focused on relatively minor accusations of misreporting the source of funds that mostly came from the prime minister himself or his mother, a wealthy heiress to the Bridgestone Tire fortune.

Indeed, if anything, the scandal involving Mr. Hatoyama has only served to highlight the prime minister’s seemingly loose handling of his own personal wealth. The grandson of a former prime minister, Mr. Hatoyama comes from one of Japan’s best-known political families, whose European-style mansion in Tokyo is now a minor tourist attraction.

Political analysts said that so far this has helped the public take a tolerant view of the accusations.

“This is just his own money, so there is no question of bribery or real wrongdoings,” said Tomoaki Iwai, a professor of politics at Tokyo’s Nihon University.

According to a poll published Monday by the Kyodo News Agency, 79.7 percent of respondents said Mr. Hatoyama should not resign. (The poll was conducted by telephone over the weekend with 1,026 voters and gave no sampling error.)

The scandal began last summer amid revelations that Mr. Hatoyama’s political fund-raising group had misreported some $2 million in donations, sometimes listing dead people as donors.

Mr. Hatoyama has already apologized following the earlier accusations, and told Parliament on Monday that he would cooperate fully with the investigation. He said earlier that he had no knowledge of the misreported donations, suggesting that his staff had acted without his consent.

“I will await the legal decision, and depending on the result, want to continue to fulfill the duty given to me” by the Japanese people, Mr. Hatoyama, 62, told Parliament.

According to the newspaper reports, the prime minister’s mother, Yasuko Hatoyama, 87, gave him some $150,000 a month starting in 2002, when Mr. Hatoyama was previously head of the Democratic Party.

Mr. Hatoyama was re-elected party chief last summer, and led the Democrats to their landmark victory over the Liberal Democratic Party, which had governed Japan for most of the postwar period.

The fact that most of the money comes from Mr. Hatoyama or his family sets the current accusations apart from another scandal that has plagued the Democrats, involving misreported donations by a construction company to the fund-raising group of the party’s secretary general, Ichiro Ozawa. The trial of one of Mr. Ozawa’s former secretaries is scheduled to begin later this month.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company