Photo/Illutration Masayoshi Takemura, center, speaks to reporters after meeting with newly designated Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa at the prime minister’s office on Aug. 7, 1993. Takemura later served as chief Cabinet secretary of the Hosokawa administration. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

In the summer of 1988, a meeting of the Liberal Democratic Party’s Diet Affairs Committee was wrapping up as usual without incident, when a member, Masayoshi Takemura, raised his hand.

“There’s a lot of public uproar over the Recruit stock-for-favors scandal, but we aren’t even discussing it as a party,” said Takemura. “Don’t you think we should be dealing with it by initiating an investigation of our own?”

Takemura, who would break away from the LDP five years later to create the New Party Sakigake, took this occasion as the cue to form a study group, made up of younger LDP members, to address issues of money in politics.

Explaining his move later, Takemura recalled the sense of guilt he used to feel whenever he submitted a receipt for cash payments distributed by senior party officials or a “habatsu” faction, only to be told there was no need to hand in any receipt.

The proposal made by the study group became the basis of the LDP’s political reform guidelines, which are still perfectly pertinent today, including the clarification of fund-raising parties’ revenues and expenditures.

The Abe faction slush fund scandal that is rocking the LDP now has exacerbated the public’s already deep mistrust in politics, and is said to be the gravest crisis to plague the LDP since the Recruit scandal.

But Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was pathetically indecisive at a recent news conference, noting only vaguely that a review of the habatsu faction system “may become a subject of discussion.”

Even worse, we are not hearing any cries of objection saying, “This is bad enough,” nor calls for reform, from among the party’s younger members. There is a small handful of LDP lawmakers taking a firm stand, but the majority of the party seems to be giving them the cold shoulder.

I understand that in the political community one’s standing is determined by the number of times one has won elections.

Still, I demand that legislators show their mettle. They are our elected representatives, after all, and it just won’t do for them to behave like pawns at the beck and call of their bosses.

Takemura’s remarks caused a stir within the LDP. In his book titled “Watakushi wa Nippon wo Sentaku Shitakatta” (I wanted to clean Japan), Takemura wrote: “I must say, the fact that my remarks caused a stir was nonsensical in itself.”

He said it all, and I haven’t got anything else to add.

Oh, there’s just one thing: In 1988, Takemura was a freshman lawmaker and a member of the habatsu led by Shinzo Abe.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 19

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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