Lawmakers vote to expel gossip blogger GaaSyy from Diet

Yoshikazu Higashitani is on track to become the first Diet member ever shown the door for failing to set foot in it.

The Upper House's disciplinary committee unanimously decided on March 14 to expel Higashitani, a celebrity gossip YouTuber known online as GaaSyy, from the Diet for being absent from the legislature since he was elected last summer.

The Diet is expected to formalize the decision on March 15, making him the third Diet member to be expelled since 1950.

Expulsion is the most severe punishment the committee can give to a lawmaker.

Higashitani won his first seat in last summer's Upper House election as a candidate for the populist NHK party. But he is set to end his brief political career as a member of something that sounds more like a pop idol group.

The NHK party, which frequently changes its name for publicity reasons, renamed itself again to the Seijika Joshi 48 Party on March 9.

The committee had set up another opportunity for Higashitani to apologize. But Satoshi Hamada, an Upper House member of the Seijika Joshi 48 Party, read out a letter of explanation on Higashitani's behalf instead.

Higashitani ran as a proportional representation candidate, and about 280,000 voters specifically wrote his name on their ballots.

But he has missed the two extraordinary Diet sessions last year, along with the current ordinary session, and remains abroad.

In late February, the Upper House ordered him to show up to the Diet and apologize. Higashitani had suggested he would return to Japan to make an apology but has continued to flout the committee's order.