An influential Liberal Democratic Party politician criticized Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Wednesday for suggesting he might back the removal of a 12-year ban on stock transactions by Cabinet ministers.
"The lead that plunged Japan into the current confusion was the Recruit scandal," Hiromu Nonaka, a former LDP secretary general, said at a university in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture.
Politicians "should have the sense of responsibility for political administration, while being aware of the danger involved in permitting Cabinet ministers in charge of fiscal, financial and economic policies to engage in careless stock deals," he said.
On Tuesday, Koizumi asked the Cabinet to "consider" scrapping the ban. The idea to scrap the ban, which has been in place since June 1989, originally came from Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa.
In the Recruit scandal, several dozen prominent people of politicians, bureaucrats, leading industrialists, Cabinet ministers and other celebrities in the late 1980s were found to have received cut-rate, unlisted shares of companies affiliated with Recruit Co., a provider of job information. The shares later soared in value, giving those who sold them handsome capital gains.
The public rage over what was perceived as bribes forced the resignation in 1989 of the administration of then Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita.