The Liberal Democratic Party’s proposal to amend the law regulating political funds suggests that the ruling party does not clearly understand the seriousness of the damage to public trust in politics caused by the slush fund scandal.

The crisis in politics will never be resolved if the response to the scandal ends with only halfhearted, toothless measures without a fundamental revision of the law, which has long been criticized for being riddled with loopholes.

Prior to the first meeting of the Lower House’s ad-hoc committee on political reform on April 26, the LDP has finally put together its own proposal for amending the Political Funds Control Law.

The two-stage reform plan consists of measures intended to be enacted and implemented during this session of the Diet to prevent recurrences and other steps to be considered later.

It is difficult not to suspect that the LDP is maneuvering to put off bold reforms to boost transparency in the flows of political funds so that substantial and meaningful changes will be postponed due to time constraints.

Faced with questions over systematic and long-running operations to amass secret funds by the LDP’s factions, the ruling party’s members embroiled in the scandal often claimed ignorance, saying they had entrusted financial matters to the accounting managers.

As an inevitable response to the evident need to make it harder for lawmakers to divert accountability onto their secretaries and others, the LDP’s draft revisions to the law prioritize holding politicians more accountable for violations and strengthening penalties.

First, politicians would be required to provide a “written confirmation" attesting to the accuracy of the political fund reports they submit to the authority.

Moreover, if an accountant is penalized for omitting or falsifying records, and the confirmation of the report is found to be inadequate, the politician would also be penalized and their civil rights suspended.

Unlike the guilt-by-association system in the Public Offices Election Law, where a candidate’s election can be invalidated with a five-year ban on candidacy for the same election in the same district if someone closely associated commits a serious electoral offense, the new requirement centers around "confirmation" issues.

It is doubtful whether this approach will actually be effective in holding politicians accountable.

Measures such as the confiscation of undeclared income, strengthening external audits of political funding reports and mandating online submission of the reports represent steps forward.

However, other than the measures for prevention, only items for future consideration are listed, leaving them to "sincere consultations" with all parties and parliamentary groups. This hardly seems like a genuine effort.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has instructed that discussions be resumed on disclosing how Diet members spend 1 million yen ($6,400) in fixed monthly allowances intended to cover research, travel and communications expenses.

However, Kishida has not taken steps toward transparency in so-called “seisaku katsudo-hi” (policy activity expenses), a loophole that allows political parties to provide funds directly to individual politicians with no legal requirement of disclosure of their usage.

In addition, he has not taken measures to rectify lax disclosure for those who purchase tickets to fund-raising parties and to restrict the transfer of funds from “political organizations associated with Diet members” to less strictly regulated political organizations to take advantage of the looser standards.

A review of political donations by companies and other organizations is not even listed as an item for consideration.

With the LDP’s proposal now on the table, its talks with Komeito, the LDP’s junior coalition partner, to hammer out a joint ruling coalition proposal will intensify in the coming weeks.

Komeito has already released an outline of draft revisions to the Political Funds Control Law that include the introduction of a guilt-by-association system and mandatory disclosure of policy activity expenses.

Komeito must play the vital role of convincing the LDP to agree to genuine reforms that will restore public trust in political funding without resorting to easy compromises.

--The Asahi Shimbun, April 25