Unsworn Witness from Ex-Abe Faction: Work toward Settling Political Funds Issue

Editorial

17:11 JST, February 28, 2025

Diet members who belonged to the former Abe faction of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party had continued not to record part of the funds they received in their political funds reports. The faction’s former accounting manager was also involved in this scandal. All bear an exceedingly heavy responsibility for causing distrust in politics.

However, even if the Diet were to continue pursuing the issue — which the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office’s special investigation squad has thoroughly probed with a large number of investigators — it would only fall into a never-ending cycle of discussions. It is time for concrete reforms to be implemented to prevent a repetition of such a scandal.

The Budget Committee of the House of Representatives has held a hearing with the former accounting manager, Junichiro Matsumoto, as an unsworn witness, who was found guilty of violating the Political Funds Control Law in a case involving the faction.

For many years, the faction had given each of its lawmakers a quota for selling tickets to its political fundraising parties, and the proceeds of any sales in excess of the quota were kicked back to the lawmakers. Although there is no problem with the kickbacks, neither the faction nor the lawmakers reported them in their respective political funds reports, which is a violation of the law.

In the spring of 2022, at the direction of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was the faction leader at the time, it was once decided to stop the kickbacks. However, at a meeting of the faction’s executive members in August 2022, after Abe’s death, the decision was reversed so that the kickbacks could continue.

At the hearing, attention was focused on how the decision to continue the kickbacks was made. Matsumoto said that “there was a senior faction member who asked for the resumption” of the kickbacks, and also that this person was “not an incumbent [Diet member] now,” but he did not reveal the name.

Also, some former senior members of the faction said that the August 2022 meeting of executive members did not reach any conclusions. But Matsumoto said, “As far as I am aware, it was decided at the executive members’ meeting.”

There are some new details, but Matsumoto’s testimony at the hearing generally matches what he admitted in court last year.

Since last year, about 50 people who failed to record funds they received in their political funds reports have given their explanations at the Deliberative Council on Political Ethics in both chambers of the Diet. However, facts that would lead to clarifying the entire picture of the scandal did not emerge at the council sessions. Simply repeating the same thing is just a waste of time.

Rather, what should be hastened to a conclusion on the issue of politics and money is the handling of donations from corporations and organizations. The ruling and opposition parties have agreed to reach a conclusion by the end of March.

Other parties, including the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, have submitted bills to ban donations from corporations and organizations. However, there also is a problem that relying solely on individual donations for political funds would tend to make political parties’ activities more dependent on specific individuals with abundant financial resources.

The LDP has submitted a package of bills that focuses on the transparency of funds. It would require that the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry disclose companies, organizations and other entities that made donations exceeding ¥10 million.

The Political Funds Control Law states that justice and fairness should be ensured by disclosing the balance of political funds and other means to ensure that political activities are subject to constant monitoring and criticism by the public. Debate should be deepened based on the meaning of the law.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Feb. 28, 2025)