Junior Diet members should avoid jealousy -- this was the advice Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had Wednesday for 30 new Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers who weren't invited to a party dinner he hosted the previous evening, apparently because they had joined LDP factions.
"They are still freshman lawmakers, just elected to their first term, aren't they? I don't think they should be jealous," a frowning Koizumi told reporters at the Prime Minister's Official Residence.
Koizumi, the LDP president, hosted the casual dinner Tuesday at his residence in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, but only invited 53 of the 83 LDP lawmakers elected to their first term in September's House of Representatives general election. The 53 who were invited had heeded Koizumi's request and had not joined one of the LDP's nine factions.