July 2, 2009

Akahata has found that the political fund management body of Hatoyama Yukio, Democratic Party of Japan president, reported that it had accepted over 3.38 million yen between 1998 to 2007 from individuals anonymously.

Personal donations up to 50,000 yen, which the management body Yuai Seikei Konwakai is not obliged to report the donors’ names and addresses, accounted for 60 percent of the 5.9 million yen it accepted in donation in ten years.

Some people whose names are cited as “donors” told Akahata that they had never made such donations. It is impossible to know with certainty that donations were actually made by individuals.

Commenting on the report that 22 million yen out of personal donations had been false, with the donors’ list including the names of deceased individuals, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi on July 1 said, “Neither Mr. Hatoyama nor the DPJ has come clean publicly. All the facts need to be revealed before the people”.

Ichida criticized Hatoyama for making an apologetic statement at the news conference on June 30 and laying the blame on his secretary and the “scarcity of personal donations” to him. Ichida said, “The statement is impossible to comprehend. It only draws stronger suspicions”.
Akahata July 2, 2009