On June 22, former Lower House lawmaker Megumi Kaneko appeared on the Bunka Hoso radio program "Kazumi Saito News Wide Sakidori!" and talked about Katsuyuki and Anri Kawai, the married politicians now being investigated for allegedly buying the votes of local Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) members in their Hiroshima Prefecture constituency for Anri, who was in an Upper House election battle with another LDP candidate.
According to Nikkan Gendai, Kaneko says it was customary for the LDP to distribute money freely during election campaigns when she was a lawmaker, that other people did what the Kawais have been accused of doing and that the custom remains. She was told that if she didn't funnel money to local politicians, they wouldn't help her in her election campaigns. The propriety of these funds is a legal gray area, Kaneko says, and it is now her aim to fight such "money influence politics."
Following Kaneko's comments, former Niigata Gov. Ryuichi Yoneyama, an LDP member himself, tweeted that he had never been instructed to distribute money in the way Kaneko implied. Although the two seem to contradict each other, it would be difficult to say that one of these politicians is telling the truth and the other is lying, owing to that gray area that Kaneko mentioned. Nikkan Gendai implies that Katsuyuki Kawai was being singled out for a practice that is widespread.