Another fact has surfaced that contradicts former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s explanations about dinner parties held for his supporters that have raised questions about whether his office covered some of the expenses in violation of the law.

The banquets at Tokyo hotels were held by Abe’s support group on the eve of annual tax-funded cherry blossom-viewing parties he hosted.

The new fact further undermines the credibility of Abe’s remarks denying his office’s involvement in paying for these parties and should not be disregarded. He gave “false” answers to related questions at the Diet as many as 118 times as he denied that his office covered the balances between the fees paid by party participants and the amounts charged by the hotels.

Abe should answer all questions about this scandal during the current Diet session.

The new revelation is that major beverage maker Suntory Holdings Ltd. offered free alcoholic drinks at these hotel events.

The company started offering free drinks in 2016 and provided a total of 382 bottles of beer, wine and whisky for the similar parties held between 2017 and 2019, effectively donating products worth roughly 150,000 yen ($1,150) each year.

Participants were charged 5,000 yen each, a price that has been questioned as being too low since it was first disclosed. But Abe asserted that the expenses were covered by the participation fees.

He claimed that the hotel determined the charge in consideration of the fact that most of the participants were also its guests. He also said no service beyond the price was provided.

A series of revelations have shown that Abe, outrageously, repeated groundless claims without confirming the facts.

Abe’s aide told prosecutors that he and his colleagues tried to “cut costs for the parties by bringing alcohol in from outside.”

During an investigation by the special investigation department of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, the aide also said they were aware that having Abe’s organization covering the balances could violate the Public Offices Election Law, which prohibits donations to constituents.

That the aide and others close to Abe recognized the illegality of paying for the parties for supporters from the beginning has also been indicated by court documents concerning the lawsuit filed against the former prime minister.

Abe cannot escape from his political responsibility for the matter by just saying he was unaware. 

Under the Political Fund Control Law, businesses can only make donations to political parties and the parties’ designated political fund managing organizations. A company providing free alcoholic drinks to a support organization for an individual politician may be making an illegal political donation.

A public relations official with Suntory Holdings said, “We offered our products for free because large gatherings are a good opportunity to promote them.”

But Suntory Holdings President Takeshi Niinami has served as a member of the government’s Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy since 2014, when Abe was in office. The company’s gratuitous supply of alcoholic drinks raises the suspicion that it had a cozy relationship with the administration.

In addition to Abe, Suntory should also offer a convincing explanation about the matter.

Even after resigning as prime minister, Abe has maintained his strong influence within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party as the head of the party’s largest faction. Recently, he has attracted attention by expressing his own opinions about security issues and economic and fiscal policies.

But he needs to fulfill his political responsibility for the “negative legacies” of his administration.

If Abe refuses to answer questions about the scandal, the Diet, which was deceived by Abe through his false answers for nearly a year, should compel the former prime minister to do so. This is the time for lawmakers to embark on a nonpartisan initiative to restore the legislature’s function as the watchdog of the administrative branch.

The LDP this week adopted a “governance code” intended to serve as guidelines for party management. The code says a Diet member facing specific allegations shall offer a meticulous explanation about them to the public. It adds that the party shall deal with such allegations in a strict manner.

The latest revelation about the scandal will serve as an acid test of the effectiveness of the guidelines drafted and adopted under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s initiative.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 3