Concerning its ties to the former Unification Church, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan accepted several members of related groups as volunteers as election staff when Ryuichi Yoneyama, a member of the House of Representatives who joined the party last week, ran for the House of Representatives election in 2009 from the 5th district of Niigata. In addition, it was announced that it was found that he was giving an election speech at the office of a related organization.
With this, 17 members of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan have been confirmed to have some kind of relationship with the former Unification Church.
At a press conference, Secretary General Okada said, ``Even though Mr. Yoneyama was running as a candidate for the Liberal Democratic Party at the time, he is now a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party, so I decided to add it to the survey results.''