Japan Press Weekly

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2009 April 15 - 21 [POLITICS]

All parties except JCP share 472 billion yen over 15 years

The Liberal Democratic, Democratic, Komei, Social Democratic, People’s New, New Party Nippon, and Japan Renaissance parties on April 20 received 8 billion yen in this year’s first installment of government subsidies. The total amount of this year’s government subsidies will be 32 billion yen.

The system of government subsidies, using taxpayer money, distributed yearly to political parties began in 1994 under the pretext of “abolishing corporate donations to political parties”. A total of 472 billion yen has been paid over these 15 years in subsidies to all parties except for the Japanese Communist Party.

These parties have continued to receive corporate donations in addition to government subsidies.

The JCP, which is the only party to refuse to accept any government subsidy, is calling for this subsidy system to be abolished on the grounds that it uses taxpayers’ money in complete disregard of people’s political affiliation and that it violates the freedom of thought and creed.

The LDP and the DPJ, in FY 2007, depended on the subsidy for 65.6 percent and 84.2 percent of party income, respectively.