85 LDP Members Submitted Inappropriate Funds Reports

Jiji Press

11:26 JST, February 14, 2024

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — A total of 85 members of the Liberal Democratic Party have inappropriately treated income from fundraising parties in their political funds reports, an LDP questionnaire survey showed Tuesday.

Covering all 374 lawmakers of the party plus 10 electoral district chiefs, the survey found that 85 respondents failed to list or misstated kickbacks from fundraising party ticket sales, or part of such sales, in their political funds reports.

With the survey results, presented to a board meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, the opposition camp intends to have intensive discussions on the political finance misconduct involving LDP factions the following day.

Earlier on Tuesday, Diet affairs chiefs from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party), the Japanese Communist Party and the Democratic Party for the People requested the LDP’s Kazunori Tanaka, who heads the lower house’s Deliberative Council on Political Ethics, to hold a council meeting to question key members of an LDP faction previously led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and another faction headed by former LDP Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai.