Japan Press Weekly

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2022 November 23 - 29 [POLITICS]

31.8 billion yen in government subsidies paid to all political parties except JCP in 2021

Political parties, except the Japanese Communist Party, in 2021 received a total of about 31.8 billion yen in "government subsidies to political parties". The subsidies are funded by taxpayer money of 250 yen per capita.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party received about 17 billion yen which accounted for 69.6% of the party's total income. The LDP's ruling partner of Komei Party received more than three billion yen. Its dependency rate on government subsidies was 25.4%, up 0.6 percentage points from the previous year, being on an upward trend these years. In the "Ishin" party, a supplementary force to the ruling parties, 79.6% of its income source came from the government subsidies.

The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan depended on the government subsidies for 81.5% of its total income, significantly exceeding the 55.1% last year. The ratio of the government subsidies to the total income in the Democratic Party for the People was 94.7%, 56.2% in the Social Democratic Party, and 35.2% in the "Reiwa" party.

Political parties can pool the left-over subsidies, and do not have to return the remaining money to the state coffers. With all political parties combined, the amount of subsidies being carried over to the next year totals about 25.7 billion yen. In the LDP alone, the carrying-over of subsidies amounted to more than 21.4 billion yen.