Takeshita Vows to Stay in Power Despite Scandal

Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita vowed Sunday to remain in office and to defy mounting calls for his resignation in the wake of a widening bribery scandal.

Takeshita said he will fight to remain in power as two major newspapers reported that the prime minister will publicly disclose more than $750,000 in donations and stock profits he received from the Recruit Co., the firm at the center of the scandal.

“I am endowed with power to dissolve Parliament and my Cabinet, but I have no intention of taking such steps at present,” Takeshita said at a news conference in Oita, a city in southern Japan. “I will stake my career on political reforms to regain public confidence in politics.”

Takeshita said he will provide details of his dealings with the Recruit Co. to Parliament “as soon as possible.”

Asahi Shimbun and Sankei Shimbun, two nationally circulated newspapers, quoted aides to Takeshita as saying the prime minister may reveal the list of donations to him by the company in Parliament as early as today.

$750,000 in Profits

The aides said Takeshita received donations or made stock profits exceeding $750,000 from the company between 1985 and 1987, the newspapers reported.

Recruit, a huge publishing firm, is suspected of buying political favors with gifts of cash and stock.

The company is also alleged to have sold pre-listed shares of stock at bargain prices to politicians and business leaders in late 1986, enabling the buyers to reap huge profits when the shares subsequently went public.

Takeshita’s standing in opinion polls has plummeted to 5%, the lowest for any postwar Japanese prime minister, according to a recent survey by Mainichi Shimbun.

He has come under mounting pressure--including from some members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party--to resign.

“Mr. Takeshita should take responsibility for causing trouble to the ruling party, and I believe he is looking for the opportune time to step down,” Susumu Nikaido, former president of the party, said Saturday.

Takeshita has admitted that Recruit bought $225,000 in tickets to a 1987 fund-raiser in his campaign to claim the government’s top executive post, and Tokyo newspapers Saturday quoted aides as saying the firm also purchased $150,000 in tickets for a second campaign party.

Donations Told

The two newspapers Sunday quoted aides to Takeshita as saying that he received $188,000 in donations from Recruit in 1986.

Takeshita has already admitted that he made $195,000 by buying pre-listed Recruit shares in the names of his private secretaries and later selling them at a profit. Other leaders of the ruling party have made similar admissions.

Three of Takeshita’s key ministers have resigned because of their roles in the scandal, and thirteen Recruit executives, including the firm’s founder, and former deputy ministers of labor and education have been arrested. Eight have been indicted on charges of bribery.

The government’s proposed $454-billion budget has been stalled in Parliament because of a boycott by opposition parties over the scandal.