Photo/Illutration Ryu Shionoya, chairman of the Abe faction, formally called Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyukai, of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, leaves the party headquarters after a news conference in Tokyo’s Nagatacho district on Jan 19. (Yuki Shibata)

Back in 1994, the Liberal Democratic Party proclaimed unequivocally, “We are disbanding our ‘habatsu’ factions, and all habatsu offices will be shut down by the end of this year.”

The LDP had been ousted from power the year before, and that proclamation was something of a desperate measure, taken in the hope of winning back the public’s support.

Has the LDP stuck to its declaration of 30 years ago? I suppose I needn’t even bother with the answer.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, former party Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai and Ryu Shionoya, chairman of the powerful Abe faction that was once led by the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on Jan. 19 announced the disbandment of LDP factions.

Will history repeat itself?

Incidentally, the dissolution of those intraparty cliques also occurred under the Fukuda administration in the 1970s. And when the Recruit stock-for-favors scandal came to light in the late 1980s, the party expressed its collective “resolve” to do away with factional politics.

It is said that what happens for the second time is tragedy, but the third time is farce. What, then, about the fourth and the fifth?

According to an old story that once ran in The Asahi Shimbun, there was the saying in Nagata-cho, the seat of Japanese politics: “No resolution is easier to make than to quit smoking or dissolve LDP factions.” This was a joke, of course, and its punchline was, “You can make the resolution as many times as you want.”

Simply put, factions have been used for no other purpose than to collect political donations. Their sordid reputation owes entirely to sneaky LDP lawmakers who receive money they can’t talk openly about and use it surreptitiously.

In declaring the disbandment of factions with much fanfare, I believe the LDP is deliberately diverting the public’s attention from the crux of the problem.

Prosecutors are said to have decided not to indict seven senior members of the powerful Abe faction. But that does not mean the party’s woes are over.

On the contrary, the prime minister and the LDP leadership now owe it to the public to fully explain how the slush fund worked, and then proceed with a fundamental overhaul of the pertinent laws that are replete with loopholes.

An ancient saying goes to the effect, “The wise man holds himself responsible for problems and mistakes, and the petty man holds others responsible for his problems and mistakes.”

I demand that any politician, who would place the entire blame on their accountant to save their own skin, resign from politics as soon as possible.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 20

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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