Embattled Japan PM faces ethics committee, with popularity and budget on the line

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attends a bilateral meeting with Kenyan President William Ruto at the prime minister's office in Tokyo, Japan, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024. Shuji Kajiyama/Pool via REUTERS

TOKYO (Reuters) -Fumio Kishida on Thursday became the first sitting Japanese prime minister to appear before a parliamentary ethics committee, as he sought to draw a line under a funding scandal that has hurt his popularity and may delay next year's budget.

Kishida's attendance followed weeks of wrangling between the opposition and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) over the technicalities of how to hold the hearings, which will look into how some LDP factions failed to report hundreds of millions of yen from fundraising parties.