A three-day session with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida began in parliament Wednesday, giving opposition parties the opportunity to grill Kishida about his party’s ties to the Unification Church, the state funeral for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the hobbled economy.
It was the the opposition's first question-and-answer session since June. In the interim, Abe was shot dead just before the July Upper House election, the government held the state funeral last month amid rising public criticism and the nation battled through a seventh wave of the pandemic — all while the yen hit new lows and rising prices shattered consumer confidence.
The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the country's largest opposition force, centered a large portion of its questions on the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's affiliations with the controversial religious group, but also touched on the prime minister’s economic measures to address wage hikes and rising prices. Other ruling and opposition parties are expected to ask questions through Friday in both chambers.