December 18, 2024

The House of Representatives at its plenary meeting on December 17 passed three “political reform”-related bills by majority vote and sent the bills to the House of Councilors.

The three bills are: a bill submitted by seven parties, including the Japanese Communist Party and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, to abolish “policy activity funds”; a Liberal Democratic Party-proposed bill to revise the Political Funds Control Act; and a bill co-sponsored by the Komei Party and the Democratic Party for the People to establish an independent third-party organization to monitor political funds.

The JCP voted for the bill to ban “policy activity funds”, while voting against the other two bills.

In discussions prior to the vote, JCP Diet Policy Commission Chair Shiokawa Tetsuya stated, “The current extraordinary Diet session is tasked with getting to the bottom of the LDP slush-fund allegations and rooting out money-power corruption.” He added, “The fundamental issue of political reform is to prohibit corporate and organizational donations to political parties. This is the demand of the general public. However, the ruling LDP turns its back on the public demand.”

Shiokawa argued that unlike individual donations to political parties which is the inherent right of citizens, political donations from corporations and other interest groups are essentially bribery, and thus should be banned. In addition, he stressed the need to close two loopholes: fundraiser ticket purchases by corporations and organizations and political donations from corporations and organizations to party branches.

Regarding the Komei/DPP-sponsored bill, Shiokawa pointed to the possibility that an independent third-party organization may be used as a convenient shield for political fund scandals. Stating that political funds should be subject to “constant public monitoring and criticism”, he demanded that political funds reports be stored permanently in a government database and be disclosed to the public.

Shiokawa pointed out that it is totally unacceptable that the LDP-drafted bill, while prohibiting foreigners and foreign corporations from purchasing political fundraiser tickets, excludes “foreign companies which have been listed for more than five years as Japanese firms” from the ban.

The JCP lawmaker said that in order to eliminate money-power corruption, the need is to establish a rule under which only individual donations are allowed and to abolish the government subsidy to political parties.

Past related articles:
> Shiokawa raps LDP for trying to maintain system allowing purchases of fundraiser tickets by foreign corporations [December 17, 2024]
> 7 parties jointly submit bill to abolish ‘policy activity funds’ [December 5, 2024]