Japan Press Weekly

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2014 September 10 - 16 [POLITICS]

LDP thanks business leaders for encouraging political donations

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Tanigaki Sadakazu met with Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) Chairman Sakakibara Sadayuki on September 9 at the LDP headquarters, expressing his gratitude for Keidanren’s decision to encourage its member companies to make donations to the LDP.

Keidanren had refrained from promoting political donations since the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in 2009, but it changed the policy on September 8.

In the early 1990s, the LDP’s money-driven politics provoked severe public criticism. In 1994, the government introduced the political party subsidies system in exchange for a promise to ban political donations by corporations and other organizations. However, this promise was broken and all political parties other than the Japanese Communist Party have received both corporate contributions and public subsidies for two decades.

Keidanren’s new policy is to more actively back the government of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, who has been flying around the world to sell Japanese-made nuclear reactors as well as aiming to completely lift a ban on the use of temporary workers.

The LDP, soaked in money from the business community including nuclear power-related companies, shows no sign of remorse for the fact that it actively promoted the myth about the safety of atomic power plants which consequently contributed to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Past related article:
> Keidanren member corporations will resume political donations to LDP [August 28, 2014]