 LDP bill to amend political funds control law is toothless: Shii The Liberal Democratic Party is considering amending the Political Funds Control Law to impose upper limits on the amounts of money political party factions and political action groups for individual politicians can receive. On October 6, Japanese Communist Party Executive Committee Chair Shii Kazuo said that the LDP draft is completely toothless because it would do nothing to plug up loopholes, including the use of money laundering-like methods to collect money from corporations and powerful lobbying organizations. Shii stressed out that the LDP draft fails to address the problem of money given to individual politicians via the LDP's fund-raising organization as has been revealed in the recent scandal over donations from the political action group of the Japan Dental Association. Shii said, "In order to prevent donations from being made to individual politicians via political party fund-raising organizations, it is essential to ban donations at the source, namely corporations and other related organizations." Concerning reports that the Democratic Party of Japan is considering establishing a law to control the use of fund-raising organizations to collect funds for individual politicians, Shii said no political funds control law will be effective unless a blanket ban is imposed on donations from corporations and other organizations. (end) |