Kickback claim hangs over Abe’s party
Govt caught in second graft row in 2 weeks
TOKYO: Just a week after the resignation of his farm minister, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has become the latest Japanese politician to be tainted by allegations of financial impropriety.
Mr Abe will look into accusations in a Sankei newspaper report that a local chapter — headed by the prime minister — of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party broke funding laws, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters in Tokyo yesterday. The newspaper reported that the chapter got a 500,000 yen (135,000 baht) donation from a company in line to receive government subsidies.
While Mr Abe’s support rate has remained steady despite a series of scandallinked resignations from his cabinet in recent months, opposition grilling of ministers over financial blunders has slowed budgetary debate and is delaying his economic and defence agenda. Cabinet scandals were among the difficulties that forced Mr Abe to step down as prime minister in 2007, although the impact of the latest report is hard to read, according to analyst Steven Reed.
The opposition’s focus on scandals will continue, said Mr Reed, a professor of political science at Chuo University in Tokyo, who is writing a book on corruption in Japanese politics. “There’s no reason for them to stop,” he said.
The Yomiuri newspaper published a list of politicians it said had received similar contributions, including Economy Minister Akira Amari and several from opposition parties including Katsuya Okada, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan. Mr Amari said yesterday he would return a donation.
Ed u cat io n Mi ni s t e r Hakubun Shimomura, who is also embroiled in a separate funding scandal, told reporters he plans to give back an “inappropriate” donation of 100,000 yen received by his party office in 2009, Kyodo News reported. The news agency said his office got the money from a person who was a lender to a company with connections to organised crime.
Companies are not allowed to make donations to a political party chapter or funding group within a year of being notified that they will receive government subsidies, according to the Sankei. However, if politicians are unaware the companies are being subsidised, they will not be prosecuted.
“He didn’t know that the company in question received government subsidies,” Mr Suga told reporters when asked about the donation to the prime minister’s chapter. “He will first of all investigate the facts and then deal with it appropriately.”
Koya Nishikawa resigned as agriculture minister last week after parliamentary debate was stymied by questions over his accepting money from a sugar company while involved in negotiations for a regional trade agreement.
Kyodo reported later yesterday that Mr Abe’s chapter got at least 1.74 million yen in donations from two companies that receive government subsidies.
In October last year, two female cabinet members stepped down on the same day. Trade and industry minister Yuko Obuchi resigned over allegations of improper use of political funds and Justice Minister Midori Matsushima, quit over claims she breached election laws.
While the sums involved are relatively modest in the latest scandals, pressure over similar breaches resulted in two LDP premiers resigning in quick succession after Mr Abe in 2007 and helped the Democrats win by a landslide in 2009, Mr Reed said.
“Japanese law is so restrictive that you have to break the law in order to win,” Mr Reed said. “It forbids a lot [that is] standard practice in other countries.”