Photo/Illutration Hiroshi Moriyama, who chairs the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s General Council, speaks with reporters on Feb. 15. (Takeshi Iwashita)

Few details were gleaned from the questioning of ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers regarding the large amounts of unreported cash raised through fund-raising parties and later returned to the lawmakers.

The LDP released on Feb. 15 the report compiled by a special committee that questioned 82 incumbent lawmakers and three individuals who headed LDP electoral district branches.

Of those 85, 79 belonged to the faction once led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the six others belonged to the faction once headed by Toshihiro Nikai, a former LDP secretary-general.

No one seemed to know how the practice of returning money raised in excess of the ticket quota assigned to each lawmaker began.

One individual from the Abe faction said it might have started about 20 years ago, while a Nikai faction lawmaker said it likely began about a decade ago.

The committee said that after questioning top executives of the Abe faction it was unclear when the practice began.

Many of the lawmakers explained that they had been told by faction officials to not include the money in their political fund reports.

While 53 lawmakers said they spent the money returned to them from the fund-raising parties, they did not provide specific amounts for various items nor did they explain if that money was spent for personal use or in line with their political activities.

Only 11 lawmakers, all from the Abe faction, said they realized they were not including the money in their political fund reports.

Thirty-one lawmakers said they did not spend the money. Several said they were hesitant to spend the funds because aides said money not included in political fund reports should not be spent.

One said the money did not seem completely legitimate, while another said the money would be set aside to fulfill the ticket quota for the next fund-raising party.

One Abe faction lawmaker criticized faction executives for resuming the practice after Abe instructed that it be stopped prior to his assassination in July 2022.

While some lawmakers felt remorse for having generated mistrust among the public, one said that the practice was in place from his first term so that it was considered established practice.

The committee was headed by Hiroshi Moriyama, chair of the LDP’s General Council. While other party executives were also involved in the questioning, seven lawyers from two law firms also sat in on the sessions.

Those lawyers compiled recommendations about what the LDP should do about the problem.

Pointing to the fact that many young lawmakers who were questioned said they had no choice but to go along with what senior faction members said, the recommendation said the factions had a “closed organizational culture” that did not allow for the free voicing of dissenting views.

The lawyers proposed setting up an outside organ to which lawmakers could report dubious financial dealings by fellow faction members.

The lawyers also pointed to the fact that many lawmakers left almost everything about the money up to their aides. The lawyers described that as “abandonment of leadership” on the part of the lawmakers and urged them to receive regular reports from aides about political funds.

The lawyers called the accumulated cash from the fund-raising parties a “slush fund” and said not having lawmakers and their aides deal with the matter even though they were aware of the nature of the money was a grave oversight.

The lawyers added that sufficient deterrence should be set to prevent improperly handling money on the notion that humans are weak and bad by nature.

(This article was written by Naoki Matsuyama, Shinobu Konno and Takuro Chiba.)

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