The Democratic Party of Japan hopes to pick a new Diet affairs chief soon because it believes the uproar over the e-mail allegation has been settled with the apology by lawmaker Hisayasu Nagata and executives of the main opposition party, members said Wednesday.
But Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Tsutomu Takebe, the secretary general of his Liberal Democratic Party, are not yet set to put to rest the issue over the now admitted bogus e-mail the DPJ raised in the Diet last month to show shady financial links between Livedoor Co. founder Takafumi Horie and Takebe.
Yoshihiko Noda, whose resignation as the DPJ's Diet affairs chief was approved Tuesday, again apologized at a meeting of executives for disrupting the Diet by giving party colleague Nagata the go-ahead to read the e-mail that was alleged to have been sent from Horie instructing staff to transfer 30 million yen to Takebe's son.