Japan Press Weekly

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2014 October 15 - 21 TOP3 [POLITICS]

Moneyed politics is specialty of LDP

Two Cabinet ministers have resigned for alleged misuse of political funds and for alleged distribution of vote-buying gifts, respectively, after only one and a half months in office. Money-power politics is more than just scandals involving Industry Minister Obuchi Yuko and Justice Minister Matsushima Midori because this is a distinctive characteristic of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Defense Minister Eto Akinori is under suspicion of giving false information in his political funds reports. Agriculture Minister Nishikawa Koya last year emerged as a recipient of political donations from a beef farm, the mastermind of a huge fraud deceiving 70,000 people. Welfare Minister Shiozaki Yasuhisa is coming under attack for acting as a go-between and putting pressure on a relevant authority to accept the establishment of a particular nursing-care home.

The Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) in September pronounced that it will officially resume its policy of making political donations to the LDP. Following this announcement, LDP Secretary General Tanigaki Sadakazu expressed his thanks.

Tanigaki’s reaction shows that the LDP has no hesitation at all to receive political donations from the business community although the money is a kind of bribe and a cause of political corruption.

In the wake of rampant moneyed politics driven by corporate donations, the government subsidy system took effect in 1995 under the pretext of eliminating corruption. The system provides financial support for political parties in exchange for the abolition of the practice of corporate donations. The fund comes from taxpayers’ money (250 yen per capita/year).

However, a ban on corporate donations has yet to come into effect. Most of the political parties, except for the Japanese Communist Party, still receive both government subsidies and corporate donations.