Japan Press Weekly

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2012 September 19 - 25 [POLITICS]

All 5 LDP presidential candidates are money tainted

All five candidates for the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election slated for September 26 have the same money-tainted background.

They are Abe Shinzo (former prime minister), Ishiba Shigeru (former policy chief), Machimura Nobutaka (former chief cabinet secretary), Ishihara Nobuteru (secretary general), and Hayashi Yoshimasa (acting policy chief).

Akahata on September 21 reported that their yearly incomes in 2010 were nearly 200 million yen for Abe and Machimura, 112 million yen for Ishihara, about 70 million yen for Hayashi, and 41 million yen for Ishiba.

Their fund-managing organizations collected tens of millions of yen in one night with parties, seminars, and gatherings of some kind, although they received 9-20 million yen via the LDP headquarters in government subsidies to political parties, which came from taxpayers’ money.

The system of state political funds prohibits individual politicians from accepting donations from corporations and other political interest organizations. Nevertheless, they use their party branches as a loophole to raise money. Abe, for example, took donations from 139 companies, including a Kansai Electric Power Co’s group company.

Almost all of them used tax-sourced political funds for their wining and dining. Ishihara spent more than 6 million yen for eating at exclusive Japanese restaurants and luxury hotels 167 times last year, once every few days. Abe used more than 60,000 yen per dining outing on average, totaling more than 6.6 million yen.

Across supposed inner-party factions, they purchased each other’s fundraising party tickets. For example, Hayashi bought Ishiba’s, Ishihara bought Ishiba and Hayashi’s, Abe bought Hayashi and Machimura’s fundraising party tickets.