LDP Money Scandal Hits Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly; Ruling Party Worries Over Effect On Summer Elections

By Ryuichi Sato / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

2:00 JST, January 19, 2025

The “politics and money” scandal involving factions of Liberal Democratic Party in the Diet has now spilled over into the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly. Concern is growing within the LDP that criticism of the party may be reignited, intensifying the headwinds it will face in the run-up to elections for both the assembly and the House of Councillors this summer.

On Friday, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office issued a summary indictment of a staff member in charge of accounting for a group of Liberal Democratic Party members in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly over violating the Political Funds Control Law. In an echo of the earlier scandal, a key element was alleged failure to properly report revenue from the sale of tickets to fundraising parties.

Discussing responses

LDP Secretary General Hiroshi Moriyama on Friday held talks for about 30 minutes with Shinji Inoue, a former minister for the World Expo 2025, who serves as chairman of the Federation of Tokyo Metropolitan LDP Branches, at the party headquarters to discuss how to respond to the latest scandal in the days ahead.

Moriyama, who later visited Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, told reporters at the Prime Minister’s Office, “We want the LDP group in the assembly and the Tokyo federation to deal with the matter properly.”

Moriyama’s remarks indicate that the party wants to separate the scandal from national politics and characterize it as a problem that only involves the Tokyo assembly, but it appears inevitable that the Ishiba administration will be impacted.

At a press conference on Friday, Makoto Nishida, secretary general of the LDP’s ruling coalition partner Komeito, expressed alarm, saying, “The problem of ‘politics and money’ may lead to more severe judgment [of the ruling parties] by voters in the assembly and upper house elections.”

As the term of office for members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly will expire on July 22, the election is expected to be held in late June or early July.

The assembly election results are considered a “leading indicator” for national elections.

In the House of Representatives election in 2009, held immediately after the LDP suffered a crushing defeat in the assembly election, the then-opposition Democratic Party of Japan defeated the ruling LDP, achieving a change in government.

This year’s assembly election is considered a prelude to the upper house election, which is highly likely to be held on July 20. Concern is spreading within the LDP that it may become a repetition of last October’s lower house race, in which the LDP suffered a severe defeat due to the political funds scandal involving its intraparty factions.

Accountability questioned

A focus of attention in the assembly election will be whether the LDP will officially approve as its candidates assembly members who failed to properly report income from fundraising parties.

In the lower house election, LDP members who did not appear at the house’s Deliberative Council on Political Ethics were not endorsed as party candidates as they were considered to have failed to fulfill their accountability.

Ishiba, also the LDP president, plans to take similar action for the upper house election while the session of the political ethics council is still going on in the upper house.

However, the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly does not have a mechanism like the political ethics councils that exist in the Diet, and it is unclear how the assembly members of the LDP who failed to properly report their income will fulfill their accountability.

The LDP has not yet announced any of its officially approved candidates for the assembly election.

One idea being talked about is for none of the assembly members of the party who underreported their income to be endorsed as candidates. But a rough road is expected to lie ahead in coordinating views within the party.

Problem may smolder

The outline of the latest scandal bears a close resemblance to the case over LDP factions’ violations of the Public Funds Control Law. Opposition parties are poised to intensify their pursuit of the case as a “structural problem of the LDP.”

The political fundraising parties, the setting for the latest scandal, are believed to have become large-scale as the LDP has for a long time been the largest parliamentary group in the assembly, giving it sizable leverage in compiling the metropolitan government’s budget proposal.

There are also many local assemblies in other parts of the country where the LDP holds the largest number of assembly seats.

Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan leader Yoshihiko Noda said on Friday during a visit to Kobe, “It is quite possible that [similar incidents] have been taking place within the prefectural federations of the LDP and prefectural assemblies in various regions.” He made clear the opposition party’s intention to investigate them.

When LDP factions’ violations of the Political Funds Control Law came to light, the failure of former senior members of the Abe faction to voluntarily take responsibility fueled criticism of the party.

Within the LDP, there are calls for resolving the situation early, with a senior party member saying, “The federation of Tokyo Metropolitan LDP Branches should clarify its political responsibility and resolve the matter.”

However, it is even possible that criminal charges will be brought against LDP assembly members in the future, with the problem likely to smolder for a protracted period.