Photo/Illutration The Diet building in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward (Koichi Ueda)

At least 12,000 companies and organizations donated a total of around 3.4 billion yen ($23 million) to 433 political party branches headed by 430 lawmakers, a survey found.

Around 90 percent of the contributions ended up with branches led by politicians of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

To prevent collusion in politics, the Political Fund Control Law was revised in 2000 to prohibit companies and organizations from donating funds to individual politicians or their own political groups.

However, donations can be sent to political parties’ branches that are set up in each electoral district.

In many cases, a Diet member and a candidate for election in the district share the branch as their office.

But in reality, these branches are often headed by a just one lawmaker or local assembly member, even though the branches technically belong to the parties.

Critics say the branches are being used as conduits for donations to individual politicians, but the contributions are legal because of the loophole in the law.

The survey covered the 2021 political fund reports of lawmaker-connected groups that were published by the internal affairs ministry or prefectural election administration commissions.

Around 700 people were lawmakers as of August 2022, right after the Upper House election.

Using artificial intelligence technologies, a data science company analyzed roughly 20,000 sheets of papers in the reports and extracted cases in which political party branches headed by individual lawmakers received donations from companies and organizations.

The Asahi Shimbun double-checked the accuracy of the analysis.

According to the results, 321 LDP branches received about 3.12 billion yen in contributions; 75 branches of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan received around 210 million yen; 12 branches of the Democratic Party for the People received about 90 million yen; 23 branches of the LDP’s junior coalition partner, Komeito, received around 30 million yen; and two branches of Reiwa Shinsengumi received about 2 million yen.

The five branches that accepted the most money all belonged to the LDP.

The branch headed by LDP Vice President Taro Aso topped the list by receiving roughly 57 million yen. It was followed by branches led by former health minister Norihisa Tamura (56 million yen), Lower House member Yoshitaka Ito (54 million yen), LDP Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi (49 million yen), and LDP Policy Research Council Chairman Koichi Hagiuda (46 million yen).

A total of 116 branches received donations of 10 million yen or more: 109 from the LDP, four from the DPP, and three from the CDP.

Eight branches received donations of 10 million yen or more from a single company or organization: three branches each from the CDP and the DPP, and two from the LDP.

Revenues for branches come from donations by companies and organizations and subsidies dispersed by party headquarters.

The funds are used mainly for office expenses and political activities, but they are sometimes transferred to a lawmaker’s political group or support organization.

“Companies and organizations are part of the nation, so they naturally have the right to participate in politics,” said Tomoaki Iwai, a professor emeritus on political funding at Nihon University.

“However, most political party branches essentially act as groups for an individual lawmaker, so the donations can be considered money sent to the individual politicians,” he said. “This arrangement arouses suspicions that lawmakers are providing favors in return for the funds.”

Iwai said the rules should be revised to limit donations only to party headquarters, which are not headed by individual lawmakers.

(This article was written by Doni Tani, Ariha Noma and Takashi Togo.)

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