Under the cabinet of Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichirō, the government held 174 town meetings with citizens. An investigation committee reported on December 13, 2006 that at 15 of them, the government had asked participants in advance to make remarks with specified content. At 105 meetings, people had been asked to speak.
The committee concluded that asking anyone in advance to make a particular statement at such a meeting must be strictly forbidden. The press called the planted questions yarase, staged.