Income from Fundraising Parties Declines

Ministry for Internal Affairs and Communications released a report on the balance of political funds in 2024 on November 28th. It indicated that income from fundraising parties were significantly decreased, affected by kickback scandal in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), in which lawmakers received sales of party ticket from factions and did not report it. However, the report revealed that the LDP had heavily been relied on donations from business sector. 

The total amount of income of political parties or political organizations headed by politicians in 2024 was 4.6 billion yen, declined by 46.7 percent from the previous year. At the end of 2023, the kickback fund scandal was revealed and the parties and politicians became restraint from holding their fundraising parties.

 

The fundraising parties with 10 million yen of each income or more held by political organizations headed by lawmakers were reduced from 279 to 170 in 2024. Total amount of the income was reduced by 54.4 percent to 2.8 billion yen. Although six major factions in the LDP collected 1.1 billion yen in 2023, they prohibited fundraising party in March 2024 and all of them except Aso faction were dissolved in 2024.

The party with the greatest income in 2024 was the LDP with 22.1 billion yen, followed by Japan Communist Party (JCP) with 18.4 billion yen, Komeito with 10.1 billion yen and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) with 9 billion yen. While public subsidy for parties occupied overwhelming share in party’s income for the LDP and CDPJ, JCP and Komeito relied on their sales of newspapers.

 

The fundraising organization for the LDP, National Political Association, received political funds from business organizations or major corporations. The top three of donors for the association were Japan Automobile Manufacturing Association, Japan Electrical Manufacturers’ Association and Japan Iron and Steel Federation. Each of them donated 70 million yen or more to the LDP in 2024. Major donor for the LDP included Toyota Motors, Sumitomo Chemical, Canon or Nissan Motors.

 

Although opposition parties and LDP’s coalition partner, Japan Innovation Party, demand abolition of donation from companies and organizations, the LDP rejected it, arguing freedom of political activity of each business entity. The political funds report indicates the reason why the LDP insists on the donation.

 

The LDP distributed 478 million yen of policy activity fund to 8 leaders of the party. Then LDP Secretary General, Hiroshi Moriyama, received 233 million yen. The fund is not required to disclose how it was spent. It is expected that the spending was increased because the House of Representatives had a general election in October 2024. The fund is supposed to spent for election campaign of LDP candidates. The policy activity fund will be abolished in January 2026.

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