Photo/Illutration The questionnaire sent to lawmakers by The Asahi Shimbun regarding political funds (Masayuki Takada)

About 70 percent of lawmakers believe the Political Fund Control Law should be comprehensively revised in light of the scandal over suspected unreported income from fund-raising parties, an Asahi Shimbun survey showed.

However, only 22 percent of Diet members from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which is at the center of the scandal, responded to the online questionnaire.

The questionnaires were sent from early December to the offices of all 711 Diet members.

While 92 percent of lawmakers from parties other than the LDP responded to the survey, only 86 of the 379 ruling party lawmakers did so.

Of the 393 lawmakers who responded to the survey, 288, or about 70 percent, said the Political Fund Control Law should be revised to heighten transparency.

Revelations about suspected failures to report revenues from fund-raising parties have centered on major factions of the LDP, including the one once led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The Abe faction is believed to have assigned quotas to members for sales of tickets to its fund-raising parties, and the money exceeding the quota was returned to the lawmaker.

This money was not listed in the political fund reports of the faction or the lawmakers, investigative sources said.

The questionnaire asked the lawmakers if they were aware of such a system among LDP factions.

But those most likely to know were reluctant to respond.

A total of 124 LDP lawmakers were considered “non-responders” because they did not provide direct replies to the 30 or so questions in the survey although they did send messages to the newspaper.

Many replied that they cannot comment “because of media reports about a criminal complaint.” Others only said they are “dealing with the matter appropriately based on the Political Fund Control Law.”

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida did not respond to the questionnaire. Neither did the five high-ranking officials of the Abe faction who stepped down from their Cabinet and LDP posts after the revelations emerged.

Proposals in the survey for strengthening the Political Fund Control Law included banning all cash transfers, heightening penalties for violating the law, banning fund-raising parties, and requiring the names of anyone who buys a ticket to a fund-raising party to be included in political fund reports.

Under the current law, only the names of those who paid more than 200,000 yen ($1,400) for tickets to one fund-raising party are required on the political fund reports.

Thirty-five lawmakers belonging to the LDP and main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan said the party political groups they belong to had quotas for tickets to fund-raising parties.

Nine LDP Diet members said they received money back that exceeded their quotas, but the amounts were listed as revenues in their political fund reports.

(This article was written by Takashi Togo and Yosuke Takashima.)

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