Abe hands Nakagawa No. 2 LDP post despite scandals

Former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa was appointed Monday as secretary general of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, the No. 2 party post in the leadership of newly-elected LDP President Shinzo Abe, despite scandals still haunting him years after his cabinet expulsion.

Nakagawa, who assumed the post of chief cabinet secretary in July 2000 under then Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, resigned that October after coming under criticism over scandals involving the extramarital affair and having links with a senior member of a right-wing group, an issue also mentioned by the magazine, Focus. Abe also named former health and welfare minister Yuya Niwa as chairman of the party's decision-making General Council and farm minister Shoichi Nakagawa as chairman of the Policy Research Council."