Junji Suzuki, a lawmaker with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, speaks with reporters on Dec. 15 about funds received from his party faction. (Video footage by Haruna Shiromi)

Photo/Illutration Junji Suzuki, a lawmaker with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, speaks with reporters on Dec. 15 about funds received from his party faction. (Haruna Shiromi)

A lawmaker with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party may have opened up a Pandora’s box by stating he regarded kickbacks from fund-raising events as part of the “culture.”

Junji Suzuki resigned as internal affairs minister on Dec. 14 to avoid the humiliation of being axed by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida over a widening scandal that embroiled four Cabinet ministers.

Suzuki was a member of the LDP faction once led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that accumulated about half a billion yen in unreported money from fund-raising parties. The faction is the largest in the party.

Speaking with reporters Dec. 15, Suzuki said he received 600,000 yen ($4,200) from the Abe faction between 2018 and 2022.

Abe faction members were given quotas to fill for ticket purchases to its fund-raising parties. The size of the quotas depended on how long the members had served as Diet members or if they held an LDP or faction post.

The amounts that went beyond the quota for each faction member were placed in a “slush fund” and eventually paid back to the member. The amount in the slush fund and the kickbacks paid to faction members were not listed on the political fund reports of the Abe faction or of individual lawmakers, a violation of the Political Fund Control Law.

Regarding the kickback of money raised through fund-raising parties, Suzuki told reporters, “Including local assemblies, in the political world money was returned for tickets sold (to fund-raising parties).”

He added, “While it might sound strange to say so, in this world there was the recognition that it was almost like a culture.”

Suzuki also said he felt the faction had been handling matters appropriately as it was understood the kickbacks would be used for “political activities.”

As a result, Suzuki didn’t give a thought to listing the money on his political fund reports as income.

Suzuki was also asked about a statement he made Dec. 1 when the report first broke about the Abe faction slush fund. At that time, Suzuki claimed to not have received any kickbacks.

“There was no fact of a massive slush fund being created and having that money flow to lawmakers,” Suzuki said. “I never called as ‘kickback’ the normal flow of money from the faction that was an automatic return of the amount in excess (of the quota).”

The Asahi Shimbun has learned through investigative sources that aides to Abe faction members questioned on a voluntary basis by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office have said they were told by faction officials that the money was for “political activities” distributed from the party to individual lawmakers.

As such, they were told there was no need to list the money as income on political fund reports of the political groups headed by the lawmakers.

Suzuki told reporters he had no recollection of receiving such an explanation from Abe faction officials.

While Suzuki did explain his side of the money received from the Abe faction, the top executives of the faction who allegedly received much larger amounts, such as Hirokazu Matsuno who resigned as chief Cabinet secretary on Dec. 14, have said nothing even after leaving their government posts.

(This article was written by Haruna Shiromi and Kohei Morioka.)

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