Isao Kurauchi, the former speaker of the Fukuoka Prefectural Assembly who resigned his seat in August while at the center of a cash-for-favors scandal, said on the fifth that he stepped down because the assembly needed to start over. He held his first news conference since resigning, at a hotel in Fukuoka city.
"The series of problems had become a situation that damaged the trust of prefectural residents, and I felt responsible," Kurauchi, 72, said of his reasons for leaving. "Even now, more than two months later, my feeling has not changed that stepping aside was necessary for the assembly to make a fresh start."
Kurauchi was named by the assembly members who brought the allegations as one of the people to whom cash was handed. He has consistently denied it, calling the claims "completely groundless."
On August 10, when reporters asked him whether he would resign his seat, he took a defiant line, saying, "Why would I have to?" The assembly was thrown into confusion after that.
A motion calling on Kurauchi to give up the speakership was put before the assembly. Just before the vote, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party's prefectural caucus who had once been Kurauchi's secretary filed an emergency motion to halt proceedings, and it passed.
A week after that unusual avoidance of a vote, on August 24, Kurauchi abruptly announced he would resign his seat. He formally stepped down the next day, and when he met reporters then he said only that he wanted to give a full account in Fukuoka at a later date, without explaining his reasons.
More than two months passed before the news conference was held.