A former Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker who made headlines after allegations that she physically and verbally abused a secretary in May lost her seat in Sunday's House of Representatives election, according to Kyodo News projections.
Mayuko Toyota, 43, who quit the LDP after the scandal, ran as an independent in the No. 4 single-seat constituency in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, seeking a third term, repeatedly apologizing to voters over the incident.
In the electoral district, Toyota contended with four other candidates fielded by the LDP and three opposition parties.
"The election was different from the previous ones with the gap being like heaven and earth. Thank you for supporting a person like me," a tearful Toyota said at her office in front of a few female supporters who decided to back her after she left the LDP.
Following the scandal, most of her former backers turned to LDP candidate Yasushi Hosaka.
Toyota acknowledged that the scandal "had an influence" on her election campaign. "(The defeat) is simply due to my lack of ability," Toyota said, adding that she has not decided if she will return to politics in the future.
Toyota became infamous after the Shukan Shincho weekly magazine claimed in June that the bureaucrat-turned-politician, who was sitting in the back seat of a car driven by her then secretary on May 20, yelled at him and struck him several times on the head and face.
Shukan Shincho uploaded an audio file of the alleged incident in which a woman can be heard hurling insults, including "baldy" and "You should die," at a man who says he is driving, apologizes repeatedly and asks her to stop hitting him.
The woman also screams, "How many times did you strike my heart?" and "Don't damage my reputation anymore!"
The Saitama prefectural police launched an investigation after receiving a complaint from the former secretary.
Toyota worked at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare before entering politics. While she was at the ministry, the government sponsored her master's degree in public health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, according to an article published by the school in 2014.
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