Photo/Illutration The Upper House passes a bill to revise the Political Fund Control Law at a plenary session on June 19. (Takeshi Iwashita)

The Diet passed contentious legislation on June 19 to prevent a recurrence of a political fund scandal that engulfed the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, despite doubts about its effectiveness.

The LDP-sponsored bill to revise the Political Fund Control Law was approved by the Upper House during a plenary session with support from its junior coalition partner, Komeito.

Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) had backed the bill in a Lower House vote on June 6.

However, the opposition party opposed it in the Upper House because separate revisions on an allowance for Diet members were not expected to be enacted during the current Diet session, which closes on June 23.

Nobuyuki Baba, leader of Nippon Ishin, had on May 31 agreed with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, president of the LDP, on the revisions to disclose the usage of the allowance covering research, public relations and accommodation expenses, among other reforms.

The main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the Democratic Party for the People and the Japanese Communist Party voted against the bill.

The revised Political Fund Control Law, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2026, will require politicians to disclose those who purchased more than 50,000 yen ($315) worth of tickets for fund-raising parties, compared with more than 200,000 yen under the current law.

In addition, revenues from fund-raising parties must be transferred to bank accounts, instead of being handled in cash if politicians choose to.

In the political fund scandal, many LDP lawmakers were found to have kept revenues from their factions’ fund-raising parties off the books for years.

The revised law will require Diet members to issue documents to confirm that political fund income and expenditure reports have been appropriately prepared.

Diet members will have their civil rights suspended if falsifications, omissions and other violations are discovered and they are found to have failed to confirm the reports sufficiently.

In addition, political organizations affiliated with Diet members will be required to submit political fund reports online.

Opposition lawmakers pointed out “loopholes” and other problems during Diet deliberations, but they remain unaddressed.

For one thing, politicians can hold fund-raising parties any number of times a year because there are no limitations.

The definition of “confirmation” of political fund reports is also ambiguous, which critics said leaves the possibility that Diet members will not be held accountable if they insist that they have been deceived by accounting officials, for example.

The LDP rejected more drastic reforms demanded by opposition parties, such as banning political donations from companies and organizations and abolishing policy activity expenses.

Currently, politicians are not required to disclose how they spend the policy activity expenses that political parties distribute to senior party members.

A supplement to the revised law called for disclosing receipts for such expenses 10 years after they are spent, but it only said that details, such as the timing of implementation, will be “considered at an early date.”

Many other issues included in supplements and additional resolutions to the revised law were also left up to future “consideration.”

“The LDP is underestimating the public anger if it decided to bring down the curtain on the political fund scandal with the legal revisions riddled with loopholes,” Shunichi Mizuoka of the CDP told the Upper House plenary session on June 19. “The curtain should be brought down not only on the scandal but also on LDP politics itself.”

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