Japan Press Weekly

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2009 September 30 - October 6 [POLITICS]

Parties received 440 billion yen in state funding

As the unemployment rate hits a record high and the recession deals a blow to people’s living conditions, the public is calling for cutting the wasteful use of tax money and using those revenues to support people’s livelihoods. The abolition of the government subsidy system to political parties, the worst form of wasteful tax use, is urgently needed.

In the recent general election, the Democratic Party of Japan promised to take measures to “eliminate the wasteful use of taxes and give priority to people’s living conditions” by resuming the allowance for mother-child households and abolishing the law to assist the “self-support” of the disabled. The “self-support” law can be abolished with the annual political subsidies of 31.9 billion yen. The amount is more than enough to resume the benefits for mother-child families.

Aggravate corruption of parties

“Being able to receive political funds automatically without making any effort could lead to the corruption of political parties.” This concern was expressed by former Finance Minister and Liberal Democratic Party member Yosano Kaoru.

In 2008, the LDP received 15.8 billion yen in government subsidies, and 11.8 billion yen were given to the DPJ in the same year.

Among the New Party Nippon’s total income in 2008, 97.5 percent comes from government subsidies. The rate for other parties is 83.6 percent (DPJ), 51.4 percent (LDP), 51.1 percent (Social Democratic Party), 30 percent (People’s New Party), and 18.8 percent (Komei Party).

Public funds saved for election

Among the government subsidies provided in 2008, 11.3 billion yen was left unused, more than double the amount not used in 2007, indicating that the receivers were trying to save the funds for the general election, which was held in the summer of 2009.

The public management minister has the right to order the return of political subsidies when they are left unused or if a party is dissolved. However, there was only one such case up to now. Former Agriculture Minister Tamasawa Tokuichiro returned 2.5 million yen after his illegal falsification of receipts was revealed.

Major media campaign during election

Political parties are trying to save the public subsidies when there is no major election in order to spend money for commercial advertisements in mainstream media during election campaigns. In the 2007 House of Councilors election campaign, the DPJ paid nine billion yen to advertising agencies for making TV commercials and other types of advertisement. The total amount of political subsidies used by all political parties (except the Japanese Communist Party) for advertisement costs and other publicity costs for that election was 21.2 billion yen.

While imposing strict regulations on door-to-door visits, flyer distribution, and other grassroots election campaign tactics, the use of commercial media based on the vast amount of government funds is left untouched. In addition to the single-seat constituency system, the system of government subsidies distorts the election system overall by giving unfair advantage to major parties, leading to the distortion of democracy.

The DPJ is now calling for further increases in the government subsidies in exchange for a total ban on corporate and organizational political donations.
- Akahata, October 1, 2009