Japan Press Weekly

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2008 October 15 - 21 [SCANDAL]

JCP Koike stresses importance of banning corporate donations to political parties

On a TBS TV Network current affairs program on October 18, when discussion moved on to the questionable donations Liberal Democratic Party and Democratic Party politicians received from multi-level marketing businesses, Japanese Communist Party Policy Commission Chair Koike Akira emphasized the need to prohibit corporations and other public organizations from making donations to political parties.

Koike said that the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan must be held accountable for their parliamentary statements in support of multi-level marketing businesses in return for the money their Dietmemebers had received from the industry, and that political donations from corporations and organizations should be prohibited because they distort politics.

When the moderator of the TV discussion said, “When something negative happens to the one party (DPJ), similar things happen to the other (LDP). Why?”

The response by LDP General Council Chair Sasagawa Takashi was that “we are all humans and there is little difference in behavior between Dietmembers.”

Koike criticized Sasagawa’s remark by stating, “Both the LDP and the DPJ must be held accountable over the present corruption scandal. What happened must not be dismissed as something that was done by humans regardless of political parties they belong. The crux of the matter here is the practice of corporations and other public organizations making donations to political parties.”

“Whenever this kind of scandal is revealed, those who should be held accountable say, ‘I am sorry. I will return the money.’ That’s why the JCP has been demanding the prohibition of corporate donations that distort democracy,” Koike added.

It was recently revealed that Noda Seiko of the LDP, who is minister of consumer affairs, had received donations from a company in the multi-marketing business in the form of fundraiser tickets purchases. She admitted speaking in the Diet in favor of the multi-level marketing business at a House of Representatives committee meeting.

DPJ member of the House of Representatives Maeda Yukichi has also frequently spoken in the Diet as well as in lectures in the interest of the multi-level marketing industry in return for donations.

The multi-level marketing business is a serious social problem today as more than 20,000 complaints have been filed a year against the companies involved.