Scandal-Hit Japanese Lawmaker Yoshikawa Urged to Resign

Tokyo, June 13 (Jiji Press)--A Liberal Democratic Party heavyweight urged House of Representatives member Takeru Yoshikawa on Monday to surrender his parliamentary seat, after he resigned from the Japanese ruling party last week over a scandal.

"I will urge Yoshikawa to quit as a lawmaker," Hiroshige Seko, the party's secretary-general at the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament, said at a general meeting of LDP Upper House lawmakers.

In last October's Lower House general election, Yoshikawa was given an LDP proportional representation seat for the Tokai bloc in central Japan after being defeated in a single-seat constituency in Shizuoka Prefecture.

"We had him quickly leave the LDP," Seko said, while pointing out that the proportional representation seat given to him belongs to the party. Yoshikawa's resignation from the LDP was accepted Friday.

According to Japanese weekly magazine Shukan Post, Yoshikawa last month dined out with a female university student, 18, under drinking age, gave alcohol and paid her 40,000 yen in cash.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]