Political Reform Halfway

Political Reform Headquarters in Liberal Democratic Party released an interim report on measures for reforming political activities of the party, facing broad criticisms against the slush fund scandal in which factions in the party were involved. The report proposes banning fundraising party by factions and detaching factions from money and appointment for the posts of cabinet or party board. However, there has not been much public expectation for the reform to be implemented.

The report firstly apologizes to the public on LDP’s scandal, in which factions distributed secret money to their members. “The people doubt LDP politStrong doubts of the people are cast on LDP as a whole with alleged inappropriate accounting over fundraising parties by specific factions,” says the report, emphasizing that the scandal has been about some specific factions.

 

Arguing that freedom of political activities is indispensable for democracy, the report demands enhancing transparency of political funds to restore confidence on politics. It declares banning fundraising party by factions and requires every faction auditing by third party. But, it does not touch any individual fundraising party by lawmakers, except requirement of controlling money through bank accounts.

 

The report does not describe the dissolution of factions. It defines factions as “entities for studying policy and complementing party with political education,” and recommends each faction to be simply a study group by taking distance from money and appointment affairs. It does not refer to “the policy activities spendings,” which are another kind of political fund distributed from the party to faction leaders. While LDP’s coalition partner, Komeito, and opposition parties have been demanding the reform of the political activities spendings, which does not require any report on how it has been spent, LDP ignored those requirements on the money.

 

There have been other arguments on political funds, including lowering threshold of reporting sales of party tickets from ¥200 thousand to ¥50 thousand, or resignation of a lawmaker whose accounting manager is arrested or indicted. Those points have not been included in the report. If a faction leader is powerful enough to raise a bunch of political funds, through fundraising parties or donations, and distribute that money to the faction members, he or she will be a great boss in the faction politics. That had been a typical LDP politics before the political reforms in 1980’s.

 

The 2024 ordinary session of the Diet started on Friday, in which the opposition parties expect thorough discussion over political reform. Some argue complete ban on the donation from companies and organizations, others require LDP further transparency over political funds. It is skeptical for Kishida to overcome those arguments with the interim report of LDP reform in such halfway measures. LDP has no specific plan to issue the final report.