Japan Press Weekly

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2021 June 16 - 22 [POLITICS]

JCP policy commission chair calls for end of gov’t subsidies to political parties as they are available even for vote-buying

Japanese Communist Party Policy Commission Chair Tamura Tomoko on June 18 at a press conference in the Diet building pointed out that as the system to subsidize political parties does not monitor how subsidies are used, public subsidies were probably used in an ex-Justice Minister’s large-scale vote-buying scandal. She demanded the abolition of that system.

Tamura made this remark in her comment on the news that ex-Justice Minister Kawai Katsuyuki, who used to be a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker, on this day was sentenced at the Tokyo District Court to three years in jail without suspension and a fine of 1.3 million yen for vote buying aimed at winning a seat for his wife, Anri, in the 2019 House of Councilors election.

Tamura noted that the LDP provided election funds totaling 150 million yen to the Kawais. She said, “There are questions that have yet to be cleared up: Who decided to provide such an extraordinary large amount of money to Kawai; and whether or not most of the funds provided came from public subsidies to the LDP.”

Tamura pointed out that Prime Minister Suga on June 17 at a press conference admitted that the decision was made by the LDP president and secretary general at that time. “This means that former PM Abe and LDP Secretary General Nikai Toshihiro were the decision makers and thus they should fully be accountable to the general public,” Tamura said. She added, “As the current LDP president, PM Suga should also explain about the flow of money to the general public.”

Furthermore, Tamura pointed out that last year, 17.26 billion yen, more than half of the annual total of 32 billion yen in government subsidies, was granted to the LDP. She said, “Despite such a huge amount of tax payers’ money, the subsidy system doesn’t require recipient parties to disclose how they used the subsidy. Accordingly, it is possible for recipient parties to use the grant to buy votes”. She went on to say that as the only political party refusing to accept public subsidies, the JCP demands the abolition of the government subsidies to political parties.

Past related articles:
> Drawing curtain over vote-buying scandal following LDP lawmaker's resignation is impermissible [March 24, 2021]
> Guilty ruling finalized for vote-buying case of ex-LDP lawmaker Kawai Anri [February 4, 2021]