Candidates with Scandal Gain Lower House Seats

In the slush fund scandal of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) emerged in 2023, 85 lawmakers were involved, receiving kickback from their factions for their sales of fundraising party ticket. 43 members of the House of Representatives out of them ran for the Lower House election on February 8th, including who had lost their seats in the election in 2024. Surprisingly enough, 41 out of those 43 won along with historical victory of the LDP led by popular Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. 

Since newspaper of Japan Communist Party, Shimbun Akahata, firstly reported the scandal in November 2023, the LDP found 85 lawmakers had been involved in. The party charged penalty on 39 lawmakers in April 2024, ranging from recommendation of leave the party for two people to simply reprimand on seven. 45 were not penalized. Most of them were from the faction led by former prime minister Shinzo Abe. Among 46 candidates who had involved in the scandal, 28 lost their seats in the election of the Lower House in October 2024.

 

Although the opposition parties, including current coalition partner Japan Innovation Party (JIP), demanded the LDP to regulate or abolish political donations from companies and organizations, the LDP refused to introduce such regulations, because it depends its political activities on those donations. Those economic entities are main contributors for sales of the tickets of LDP fundraising parties.

 

Recognizing Abe as her political mentor, Takaichi issued official endorsement of the LDP to 43 candidates in the Lower House election on February 2026. “Please give them a chance to work,” Takaichi reiterated in her campaign. Most of the candidates in the scandal were with Abe faction. Increasing lawmakers with former Abe faction would reinforce Takaichi’s political basis in the LDP.

 

Two lawmakers who received penalty of stripping membership of LDP for a year, Yasutoshi Nishimura and Hakubun Shimomura, won their seats in the February election. Nishimura and Shimomura played a major role for continuing the kickback system as the leaders in Abe faction in 2022. 18 candidates who had been suspended their leader’s position in the party for one or half year, including incumbent Executive Acting Secretary General Koichi Hagiuda, also secured or regained their seats.

 

Receiving thick support for the LDP with a number of scandal-soaked candidates, some LDP members argue that the scandal was over. However, Takaichi refused to say that her party achieved perfect public approval on the issue, demanding the related lawmakers to work hard. Nevertheless, there is no sign in the LDP to implement its decision in 1999, which promised abolishment of donation from companies and organizations from January 2000. The issue can remain as a target for the opposition parties to accuse prime minister Takaichi and the LDP.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LDP Kickoffs Presidential Election

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)   kicked off  its presidential election campaign on September 22 and five lawmakers officially submitted their candidacy to the party. Having lost majority in both Houses of the Diet under the leadership of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, the presidential election should be about how to regain power through reform of the party. Nevertheless, the candidates do not talk much about the reform, rather focusing on economic policies for the people or maneuvers to attract the opposition parties.   Those five candidates are former Minister on Economic Security Takayuki Kobayashi, former LDP Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, former Minister on Economic Security Sanae Takaichi and Miniser of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Shinjiro Koizumi.   Kobayashi insists on temporary income tax cut with a fixed rate, which return is bigger for high-income taxpayers than them with low-income. Identifying h...
Read more

Contaminated Soil to Prime Minister’s Residence

Shigeru Ishiba Cabinet discussed how the radioactively contaminated soil in Fukushima prefecture would be treated and decided some of it should be used in Prime Minister’s Official Residence in Tokyo. Although the soil needs to be removed from Fukushima with legal requirement, the government of Japan has not found anywhere it should go. Ishiba administration hopes that the decision will pave the way for any local community to accept the soil.   Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant emitted a huge amount of radiation into the air, which contaminated the land surface around the site, in the severe accident in East Japan Great Earthquake in 2011. The contaminated soil in Fukushima prefecture was stocked in the intermediate stockyard built in the towns of Futaba and Okuma, where the power plant is located. The government promised the people in Fukushima to remove the soil out of Fukushima prefecture within thirty years, when it decided to build the stockyard in 2014.   The total a...
Read more

BOJ Begins to Sell ETF

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) decided to keep its short-term rate at 0.5 percent in its Monetary Policy Meeting on September 19 th . While it had been expected that the bank would not change the policy rate in the meeting, the meeting unanimously agreed on beginning to sell exchange-traded funds (ETF). Although the policy reflected the bank’s determination for normalizing its monetary policy, the Governor of JOB, Kazuo Ueda, predicted that it would take a hundred years to release all the ETF it possesses. While the BOJ started buying ETF, a financial product which is equivalent to investment trust, in 2010, the bank abruptly increased its quantity of purchase in 2013, under the leadership of then governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, who exchanged an accord with Shinzo Abe administration to cooperate to get rid of deflation and to achieve stable economic growth. The amount of ETF bought by the BOJ has reached 37 trillion yen.   Purchase of ETF by a central bank has been recognized as a prohibited m...
Read more