Japan Press Weekly

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2020 November 25 - December 1 [POLITICS]

LDP accumulates 17.8 billion yen from public subsidies

The total amount of savings which the Liberal Democratic Party has accumulated from its acceptance of public subsidies topped 17.8 billion yen in 2019. Akahata learned this on November 27 after the Internal Affairs Ministry released each political party’s political funds report for fiscal 2019.

According to Akahata, in 2019, state subsidies amounting to 31,755,370,000 yen went to eleven political parties holding Diet seats. They include major political parties with the exception of the Japanese Communist Party which refuses to accept the subsidy, such as the Liberal Democratic Party, the Komei Party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the Democratic Party for the People, and the Social Democratic Party.

The LDP received about 17.65 billion yen in public subsidies, accounting to 72% of its total annual income. It used about 16.4 billion yen and pocketed unused subsidies without returning the unused funds to the state coffer, which increased its reserve accumulation of subsidies to 17,814,030,000 yen.

The system of government subsidies to political parties allows a recipient party to set up a “political fund” and transfer the unused subsidies to this fund for the next fiscal year. Since the system was introduced in 1995, the total amount of subsidies unreturned to the state treasury exceeds 20.7 billion yen.

The JCP refuses to accept state subsidies on the grounds that the subsidy system costs every Japanese citizen 250 yen to fund political parties regardless of one's political affiliation.

In contrast to political parties depending on the tax-funded government subsidy, the JCP finances itself with revenues from party dues, Akahata subscriptions, and grassroots donations.

JCP Financial and Management Commission Chair Iwai Tetsuya on November 27 issued a statement regarding the party’s financial activities in relation to the publication of the party’s political funds report by the Internal Affairs Ministry on the day.

In the statement, Iwai explained that the JCP in 2019 had a total income of about 20.5 billion yen (up 0.7% from 2018) and a total expenditure of about 20.4 billion yen (up 0.5% from 2018), with about 1.04 billion yen held in balance. He said that JCP business activities, mainly the publication of Akahata and various magazines and books, made up 86.3% of total income and 63.6% of total expenditure. He added that this shows the party’s close ties with the general public through its activities centering on its daily newspaper Akahata.

Past related article:
> Local daily in Iwate: political parties accepting public funds lack self-reliance [January 19 & 22, 2020]
> Political parties, except for JCP, remain dependent on state subsidies [November 30, 2019]