3 Party Elders Reportedly Press Uno to Resign
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TOKYO — Several elder leaders of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Friday urged Prime Minister Sosuke Uno to resign at an early date over his alleged involvement in a sex scandal, a Japanese news agency reported.
Kyodo News Service said three LDP leaders--Takeo Fukuda, a former prime minister; Susumu Nikaido, a former party vice president, and Raizo Matsuno, a former Cabinet minister--were motivated by the anticipation of a major setback for the ruling party in the July 23 election for the upper house of Parliament.
The report, citing party sources, said those leaders share the view that the 66-year-old Uno has suffered a serious loss of prestige because of his reported extramarital affairs.
The three elder leaders also discussed a plan to choose an acting prime minister from among the present 20 Cabinet ministers, it said, suggesting Finance Minister Tatsuo Murayama.
The popular gossip magazine Focus published a long-awaited report Friday of an affair it said Uno had with an underage apprentice geisha. It also had a report that an Uno aide was found to belong to a prostitution club.
Uno and his aides seemed to be trying to ignore the latest scandal Friday, declining to comment.
According to an Uno aide quoted in the Focus article, Uno said: “For God’s sake, there’s no truth in it.”
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