Tokyo, Nov. 11 (Jiji Press)–Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba pledged to reform his ruling party at a press conference after winning re-election in a vote in parliament on Monday.

The Liberal Democratic Party “must be reborn as the national party it should be after a harsh result,” Ishiba, also president of the LDP, said, referring to the party’s losses in last month’s general election.

He said he will urge LDP lawmakers implicated in a slush funds scandal to actively use all opportunities, including parliamentary ethics panels, to take accountability.

Ishiba pledged to efforts to enable necessary legislative measures by the end of this year to implement political reform.

His re-election followed the first runoff vote in three decades in the House of Representatives, the powerful lower chamber of parliament, after no candidate received a majority of votes in the initial ballot. Ishiba won in the decisive vote against Yoshihiko Noda, leader of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]