The question of dubious donations to Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's political fund management organization was addressed in the Lower House Budget Committee. Falsified entries in political fund reports that included the names of dead people and those who never made individual donations to Hatoyama have already been revealed.
So where did the money come from? How was the prime minister personally involved? His answers failed to dispel the suspicions.
One suspicion is that Hatoyama's organization violated the quantitative limitation on political donations.
Under the Political Fund Control Law, politicians are allowed to donate up to 10 million yen a year to their fund management organizations. While Hatoyama has explained that the fake contributions came from his own money, doubts remain that his former aide made the false entries to cover up donations that exceeded the legal limit.
The prime minister dodged criticism by saying that the amount in excess of 10 million yen would constitute lending. It is true that there is no ceiling for loans. But if so, the amount should have been reported as a loan. He failed to provide a satisfactory explanation.
Hatoyama was also asked if the fake donations contained money from his mother or companies and organizations, such as labor unions. Such money flows raise suspicions of gift tax evasion and violations of the Political Fund Control Law, which prohibits companies and groups from making contributions to lawmakers' political fund management organizations.
Hatoyama's reply was feeble: "As far as I know, I believe there was no such wrongdoing."
The Political Fund Control Law is aimed at disclosing income and expenditures to ensure transparency and to prevent inappropriate donations from distorting political activities.
The political fund reports of Hatoyama's fund management group were full of irresponsible entries, including donations from dead people, which clearly run counter to the purpose of securing transparency stipulated by the law.
Furthermore, were there any inappropriate flows of money? If the prime minister really injected his own money as he said, it would mean a rich person simply used his own funds for political activities.
Although some people may say that such action is not that problematic, the quantitative limitation on donations also applies to individual politicians. This is because politicians could be influenced if their wealth was formed with the involvement of companies and organizations.
Since loans can also serve as loopholes, some limitations are needed.
After the Recruit stocks-for-favor scandal of the late 1980s, young Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers, including Hatoyama and Shigeru Ishiba, now chairman of the LDP Policy Research Council, formed a political study group called Utopia Seiji Kenkyukai.
Group members disclosed the actual situation of their political activity expenses. In the Budget Committee meeting Wednesday, Ishiba told Hatoyama: "It is your job to clarify (the actual situation). Wasn't that our starting point?"
The prime minister should return to that starting point. The first thing he must do is take accountability.
The LDP is calling for the president of the company that manages the Hatoyama family's assets to be summoned to the Diet as an unsworn witness. There is no reason to refuse that demand.
Hatoyama surely doesn't want the public to think that donations disguised as personal contributions can serve as a loophole for a ban on corporate donations that his Democratic Party of Japan wants to impose.
The prime minister has the responsibility to provide an explanation to dispel such suspicions.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 5(IHT/Asahi: November 6,2009)