Tanaka should first cleanse herself

The Daily Yomiuri, Asia News Network, Tokyo

Each Diet member obviously is accountable for issues involving him or her.

We wonder whether former foreign minister Makiko Tanaka, who has been hit by a scandal surrounding her alleged misuse of the state-paid salaries of her former secretaries, agrees.

Tanaka issued a statement on the scandal Friday. In it, she said that, in line with the secretaries' wishes, the whole of their state-paid salaries were transferred to a company run by her family that employed them. She claimed the salaries had not been diverted, while also rejecting allegations that she had entered the secretaries' names on the list of state-paid secretaries merely for the purpose of receiving their salaries.

However, if Tanaka believes that the statement has answered all the questions leveled at her, she is sadly mistaken. She should now answer the allegations that have been made in connection with the scandal.

For example, she said the secretaries' salaries had been transferred to the company at their wish, but she needs to explain why the salaries -- which represent compensation for labor done on her behalf -- were given to the company untouched. She previously said that the secretaries were paid by the company and also received secretarial allowances, but she has not explained why such a complicated procedure was introduced.

If the company paid the secretaries' salaries, this would mean it had made political donations to Tanaka -- donations that are governed by the Political Funds Control Law. She also must explain how the salaries were listed in her political funding reports.

Tanaka's frankness and outspokenness are characteristics that work to her benefit when she is on the warpath. This is the basis of her popularity among the public. Therefore, she deserves to be accused of irresponsibility for not explaining the facts behind the scandal now that she finds herself on the defensive.

Meanwhile, there are some troubling aspects in the way that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, to which Tanaka belongs, has handled the Tanaka scandal.

Even former LDP Secretary General Koichi Kato and Muneo Suzuki, former chairman of the House of Representatives Rules and Administration Committee, appeared before the LDP's Political Ethics Hearing Committee in connection with scandals in which they were implicated.

The LDP has not given up pursuing a state-paid secretary- related scandal involving the Social Democratic Party. The LDP's ability to keep its own house in order will be questioned if it actively seeks to hold the SDP accountable over this scandal while being hesitant to address its own problems.

It is the responsibility of LDP Secretary General Taku Yamasaki and other LDP executives to show leadership in elucidating scandals involving the party's members.

Reforms of the system for hiring and paying lawmakers' secretaries can only be carried out after the questions surrounding Tanaka are cleared up.