Just a day after the surprise announcement of her candidacy in a Lower House by-election, the widow of lawmaker Shokei Arai decided Thursday to pull out of the running to fill the seat made vacant when her husband hanged himself last week.
A secretary to Mariko Arai, 45, on Thursday morning told a faction within the Liberal Democratic Party, to which the late Arai belonged, that his widow had withdrawn her candidacy in the March 29 election. On Wednesday, she had told a news conference that she wanted to run in the election to prove her husband was innocent of allegations that he demanded illegal profits from Nikko Securities Co.
The lawmaker hanged himself on Feb. 19 at a Tokyo hotel just hours before he was to be arrested by prosecutors. He had belonged to an LDP group led by former Finance Minister Hiroshi Mitsuzuka. According to members of the faction, Arai explained that she has withdrawn from the race because her son and others had urged her to drop the idea for health reasons.