The Liberal Democratic Party has decided to have an interim report by its ``Political Reform Headquarters'' in response to the incident surrounding a faction's political funding party.
In order to reincarnate the faction into its original "policy group," it plans to completely break away from money and personnel matters.
On the afternoon of the 25th, the Liberal Democratic Party held an extraordinary general affairs meeting at party headquarters with Prime Minister Kishida in attendance, and decided on the interim report of the ``Political Reform Headquarters.''
The interim report states, ``The Liberal Democratic Party sincerely regrets the incident and deeply apologizes to the people, and in addition to clear accountability from those involved, we will also reach a conclusion regarding political responsibility.''
In order to increase the transparency of political funding, party regulations have been amended
to require external audits to be conducted when factions submit their income and expenditure reports, and
to allow for disciplinary action against members if the accounting officer is arrested or indicted. That's what I'm doing.
Additionally,
▽Receipts from parliamentary parties' political funding parties will basically be transferred to banks, and
▽Income and expenditure reports will be submitted online.
▽
We will hold sincere discussions with each party and promptly enact the necessary legislation, including amending the Political Funds Regulation Act to improve the transparency and openness of political funds, and how arrested politicians should be compensated. .
On the other hand, he explained that the factions will be reborn as the original "policy groups" and will be completely separated from money and personnel affairs.As specific measures, he
will ban political funding parties, and increase the number of
members of parliament through the factions in winter and summer. In addition to abolishing the so-called ``mochi yō'' and ``ice yō,'' the
activity fees handed out to the party, the party will take measures to minimize political funds, such as conducting activities at party headquarters.
Furthermore, there is
no lobbying or consultation regarding personnel
matters, and if a violation of the Political Funds Control Act is revealed, the party will investigate and, depending on the case, request for dissolution or suspension of activities for a certain period of time. .
At the Board of Governors meeting, Prime Minister Kishida said, ``I must take the lead and continue to make efforts to implement the contents of the interim report.There is no end to political reform, and we must hold discussions to restore trust in politics and the party.'' We must continue to do so."
Party income disclosure standards are lax and ``low transparency'' pointed out
It has been pointed out that party income, which is the largest source of income for factions in the Liberal Democratic Party, is less transparent than donations, as standards such as names must be published in income and expenditure reports are looser.
Under the Political Funds Control Act,
if donations exceed 50,000 yen per year, the name of the donor and the amount must be published in the income and expenditure report. However, in the case of party income,
1 There is no obligation to publish unless the purchase amount exceeds 200,000 yen.
According to NHK's investigation into the party income of the five main factions of the Liberal Democratic Party based on the political fund balance report as of last month, 85%, or approximately 760 million yen, was made by purchasers of less than 200,000 yen each. It was said that the income was from the company, and it was kept anonymous.
It has been pointed out that most of the income of political funding parties is a black box because it is unknown what kind of companies, organizations, or individuals it comes from, and if it is exchanged in cash without going through an account, At present, it is difficult to verify whether the information stated is correct.
This lack of transparency is thought to be one of the reasons behind the systematic creation of slush funds.
Money and human resources “reform” in the past
In an interim report by the Political Reform Headquarters, the Liberal Democratic Party said it would ``completely break away from money and personnel matters.''
Regarding the issue of politics and money, he has called for ``reform'' regarding factions' involvement in political funding and personnel affairs.
In the Recruit Incident that was discovered in 1988, huge donations from corporations to politicians became a major issue, and the Liberal Democratic Party decided on its ``Political Reform Outline'' the following year.
The outline states that ``issues of politics and money are the biggest cause of distrust in politics,'' and as part of ``reform,'' it calls for ministers, factions, etc. to refrain from holding parties, and that political parties, such as donations and party income, He called for further disclosure of funds.
In addition, the committee stated that ``it is causing various harms, such as involvement with political funds, intervention in personnel matters, and support for factional-oriented elections.'' While he was in office, he advocated leaving the faction.
However, even after that, problems surrounding politics and money continued to arise, and three years later, in 1992, the Liberal Democratic Party announced that ``Politics is being conducted away from the people's point of view, such as the issue of huge political funds and political activities tied to factions.'' We have compiled the ``Basic Policy for Political Reform,'' which includes the following:
The policy is to maintain a fair policy of putting the right person in the right place when it comes to personnel affairs, not to accept recommendations from factions, to limit fundraising by factions, and to provide grants directly from the party to individual members of the Diet without going through factions. It also showed.
It also stated that it would aim to tighten standards for disclosing donations and party income in order to create a "transparent and suspicion-free political funding system."
Subsequently, legal reforms were made to regulate corporate and organizational donations and lower standards for disclosing income from political funds, but as a result, they did not prevent factions from systematically creating slush funds.
Legal revisions and growing party weight
The Political Funds Control Law was enacted by members of Congress in 1948 with the purpose of "ensuring the fairness and transparency of political activities and ensuring the healthy development of democratic politics by disclosing the flow of political funds to the public." It was established.
However, the law was criticized as having many loopholes, and the law was amended repeatedly whenever problems related to politics and money arose, but it did not lead to a fundamental solution to the problem.
In 1975, amid criticism of the financial affairs of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, who was later arrested for the Lockheed Incident, and of the plutocrats, quantitative restrictions were introduced, including setting an annual cap on donations from companies and organizations. it was done.
In the wake of the Recruit Incident that was discovered in 1988, public distrust in politics rose to an unprecedented level. System reforms aimed at redirecting political fundraising to political parties and increasing transparency were promoted, and corporate and Regulations on group donations have been tightened.
In 1994, the ``Political Party Subsidy Act'' was enacted, which stipulated that the government could provide political party subsidies to political parties, while the Political Funds Control Act was revised to prohibit factions from receiving donations from companies and organizations. is no longer possible.
However, even after that, factions were able to receive funds from companies and organizations in the form of selling party tickets, and as the proportion of party income to political organizations increased, it was pointed out that it was ``de facto donations from companies and organizations.'' I'm here.
According to the Political Funds Income and Expenditure Report for 2020, the political funding party is the largest source of income for all five major factions of the Liberal Democratic Party.