Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks to reporters after a meeting of the Liberal Democratic Party’s political reform headquarters on Nov. 21. (Takeshi Iwashita)

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party sidestepped a key demand from opposition parties in a draft political reform program compiled to address its fund-raising scandal.

The draft, cobbled together by the party’s political reform headquarters on Nov. 21, did not include any plan to prohibit political donations from companies and organizations.

A senior official of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, which called for such a ban, compared the LDP proposal to a donut.

“There is a gaping hole in the dead center of necessary regulations,” the official said.

CDP Secretary-General Junya Ogawa has described donations from companies and organizations as a “hotbed of corrupt, money-driven politics.”

The LDP hopes to soon start talks on political reform with opposition parties to revise the Political Fund Control Law during an extraordinary Diet session to be convened on Nov. 28.

At a news conference held after forming his second Cabinet on Nov. 11, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he will try to have the revised law enacted by the end of the year.

The ruling coalition of the LDP and Komeito, which lost its majority in the Lower House election in October, needs support for envisaged revisions from opposition parties.

But the CDP, Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party), the Japanese Communist Party and Reiwa Shinsengumi all call for prohibiting donations from companies and organizations.

“Parties have not reached a consensus on what to do with donations from companies and organizations,” Ishiba, who is the LDP president, told reporters after the Nov. 21 meeting of the party’s political reform headquarters. “I expect they will deepen discussions from now on.”

The LDP may come up with measures to strengthen regulations over such donations in upcoming talks with opposition parties, according to a senior LDP official.

The compromise could elicit support from the Democratic Party for the People, the third-largest opposition party, which is also wary of an outright ban.

The LDP and Komeito obtained consent from the DPP on the government’s proposed package of economic measures on Nov. 20 after they agreed to incorporate DPP proposals. 

CDP President Yoshihiko Noda warned against the possibility of a similar alliance on political reform among the three parties.

“The spirit of political reform at least entails an agreement between the largest parties in both the ruling and opposition blocs,” Noda said Nov. 21.

The LDP’s draft program called for abolishing policy activity expenses, which political parties distribute to member lawmakers, to “promote transparency in party expenditures.”

Currently, politicians are not required to disclose how they spend those funds.

Still, the provision left room for keeping private expenses related to diplomatic secrets or individuals’ privacy.

A third-party organ tasked with auditing the appropriateness of the expenses would be formed within the Diet, in principle, or within the government, as a secondary alternative.

The draft program separately called for creating a system to suspend payments of government subsidies to a political party if a party Diet member is indicted on charges of violating election laws.

It also proposed prohibiting foreign individuals or companies from purchasing tickets to fund-raising parties.

Other proposals included publishing a database of political fund income and expenditure reports and excluding Diet members’ donations to the party branches that they head from preferential tax treatments.

The LDP’s draft program excluded some other measures proposed by opposition parties, such as banning second-generation politicians from inheriting political funds of their parents, and prohibiting companies and organizations from buying tickets to fund-raising parties.

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