Debate on Political Reform: Explore Points of Agreement, Work toward Making Legal Revisions

Editorial

17:01 JST, December 14, 2024

Even if it is difficult for each political party to agree on all items of political reform, a situation must be avoided in which the parties only emphasize their conflicting points and do not make any progress toward reform.

They should at least realize the legal revisions they can agree on during the current Diet session.

Debate on political reform has been in full swing in the House of Representatives. The ruling and opposition parties have submitted as many as nine bills related to political reform, including one to revise the Political Funds Control Law. The bills have many common points, such as the establishment of a third-party organization to monitor the handling of political funds.

At the committee deliberations, however, each party has been entirely focused on stating their own opinions, and there are concerns that the debate could get out of hand. If reform talks on political funds are carried over to next year’s ordinary Diet session without any progress, debate on policy issues could stall.

The focus is on the pros and cons of banning donations from companies and organizations.

The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan has presented a bill to ban such donations and is pressing the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to accept it. However, the LDP is against the bill, saying that the party does not take the position that donations from individuals are good while those from companies and organizations are bad.

The CDPJ has argued that the LDP also apparently promised to ban such donations 30 years ago, when it was decided that tax-funded subsidies for political parties would be established. The CDPJ bases its argument mainly on the fact that then LDP President Yohei Kono, who was the party leader when the LDP was an opposition party, had said so during interviews with the lower house in recent years.

However, the idea underlying the reform at that time was that a well-balanced combination of donations from companies and organizations, donations from individuals and subsidies for political parties was desirable in order to support sound political activities.

In fact, one of the supplementary provisions of the Political Funds Control Law that was amended at the time states that “a review will be conducted after five years” based on the situation after the revised law comes into effect, only suggesting a review of the upper limit of donations from companies and organizations, among others.

The CDPJ says that donations from companies and organizations have distorted politics. However, if these donations were prohibited, it is possible that political parties would become dependent on individuals who make large donations. It also cannot be said to be appropriate for parties to be overly dependent on subsidies.

The ruling and opposition parties also generally agree on the abolition of political activity funds, which are provided by each party to its senior members and other lawmakers. Instead of abolishing the funds, the LDP has called for creating a new framework that would make it unnecessary to disclose individual names regarding certain expenditures. However, it is difficult to understand how the proposed framework would be different from the current political activity funds.

The LDP is considering modifying its bill based on those compiled by the CDPJ and other opposition parties, but instead adding its own assertions to the supplementary provisions to the revised law.

If the parties cannot settle the debate on reform with only a few days left, the situation might be dealt with by enacting legislation in the current Diet session only on the abolition of political activity funds in principle and the establishment of a third-party organization, and by continuing discussions on other issues afterward.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 14, 2024)