Tokyo Gov. Yukio Aoshima unveiled a new set of guidelines Friday to widen information disclosure on wining and dining expenses at meetings, but said he will exclude names of metropolitan assembly members from the disclosure for three months -- in an apparent bid to save them from being affected in the July 6 Tokyo assembly election.
"If disclosure is arbitrarily demanded, it could seriously affect the election and make a fair election impossible," Aoshima said at the news conference at City Hall in Shinjuku Ward. The governor claimed that public servants and assembly members attended those meetings on the assumption that their names would not be made public.
Thus a "moratorium period" to let them know about the new disclosure policy is necessary before documents carrying their names and positions are disclosed, he said.
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