Photo/Illutration The Upper House plenary session on Dec. 24 passes legislation to heighten transparency of how lawmakers handle political funds. (Takeshi Iwashita)

While three bills passed by the Diet on Dec. 24 will provide greater transparency about how activity allowances and funds are used by lawmakers, a number of issues such as political donations remain unresolved.  

The bills were submitted by different groups of political parties, reflecting the failure of the ruling coalition to maintain its majority in the Lower House in the October election.

A bill submitted by seven opposition parties to ban all policy activity allowances to lawmakers from political organizations was passed unanimously. Such payments were severely criticized because lawmakers were not obligated to disclose how they spent the money received from their parties.

Another bill jointly submitted by junior coalition partner Komeito and the opposition Democratic Party for the People to set up a third-party organ in the Diet to monitor the flow of funds to lawmakers was passed with support from other opposition parties as well as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Likewise passed was an LDP bill to ban purchases of tickets to fund-raising parties by foreigners and foreign companies as well as to establish a database of political fund reports submitted by lawmakers and political party headquarters.

But the database will not cover the reports submitted by all other political organizations that make up the bulk of those who handle political funds.

A ban on all donations from companies and organizations that was strongly pushed by the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan awaits further discussion in the Diet next year.

At a Dec. 24 news conference, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba again stated his emphasis on providing greater disclosure rather than an outright prohibition regarding such donations. He had said that political donations were one way for companies to express their opinions.

The passive stance expressed by Ishiba will likely make it difficult to fulfill the verbal agreement reached by the ruling coalition and opposition parties to resolve the issue by March 2025.

(This article was compiled from reports by Ryohei Miyawaki and Takuro Chiba.)

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