Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks at a plenary session of the Lower House on Dec. 2. (Takeshi Iwashita)

The ruling coalition announced plans to establish a third-party panel to discuss political donations from corporations and groups, an apparent attempt to delay Diet deliberations on possibly banning such funds.

At a Dec. 3 meeting in Tokyo, the secretaries-general and the Diet affairs committee chairs of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito agreed to form the expert panel.

In response to the LDP’s scandal over unreported political funds, opposition parties, such as the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party), the Japanese Communist Party, and Reiwa Shinsengumi, have called for a ban on corporate and group donations.

However, such donations are a major source of income for the LDP, and it has been reluctant to abolish the system.

The party aims to put the issue on hold until next year or later, instead of discussing inclusion of the ban in revisions of the Political Fund Control Law during the extraordinary Diet session within this year.

“We need to set up a third-party organization that includes experts to discuss the issue of corporate and group donations,” Tetsushi Sakamoto, chair of the LDP Diet Affairs Committee, told reporters after the meeting.

Hidemichi Sato, chair of the Komeito Diet Affairs Committee, said: “Even the experts are divided on this issue. We need to listen to their opinions and deliberate the issue.”

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba expressed a negative view on abolishing corporate and group donations when questioned in the Lower House on Dec. 2.

“I don’t think that corporate and group donations themselves are inappropriate,” he said.

The LDP aims to again revise the Political Fund Control Law by the end of this year, but opposition parties are expected to demand that banning corporate and group donations be included in the changes.

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