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Takashi Arimoto

【#1108】Eliminate Harm of Factions and Head for Constitutional Amendment

Takashi Arimoto ／ 2024.01.24 (Wed)


January 22, 2024

　
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida who doubles as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has announced to dissolve a major LDP faction that he had led. In response, the largest LDP faction formerly led by late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and another faction led by former Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai decided to disband. The three factions have come under criticism as their financial officers were accused of falsifying political fund balance reports. It can be said that the dissolution was inevitable.

On this occasion, harmful effects of “factional politics,” which prioritized the number of election victories over the individual abilities of politicians in selecting cabinet ministers and excessively collected political funds through fundraising parties, should hopefully be eliminated.

Enhance governance within the LDP

Throughout the LDP history, the dissolution of factions has been advocated frequently. Following the 1988 Recruit scandal where Recruit Co. provided senior politicians with unlisted shares of its subsidiary, the LDP compiled a political reform manifesto, including the ultimate goal of dissolving factions. Still, the factions did not disband and remained inertially.

Even after the disbandment of factions, however, the issue of politics and money should not be left unattended. The transfer of political funds should be made transparent, such as by making bank transfers. The Political Funds Control Act, while banning foreigners’ political fund contributions, has lacked nationality-based restrictions on purchases of tickets for factional fundraising parties. Such loophole should be closed.

Above all, the latest political money scandal has revealed that politicians are not doing the obvious thing of complying with the Political Funds Control Act. The LDP is required to enhance its governance as a political party.

The only option is for LDP to change

Today, Japan is facing a much more severe international situation than at the time of the Recruit scandal, including military coercion by China, North Korea’s nuclear and missile development, and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Japan is also urgently required to depart completely from deflation and address the declining birthrate. Amidst all this, opposition parties, including the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition party, lack the ability to govern the country. In Japan, the only option is for the LDP to change.

It must have some significance that Prime Minister Kishida, who has emphasized factions’ role of providing member lawmakers with opportunities to study policies, decided to dissolve his Kochikai faction, the oldest and prestigious faction in the LDP. Kishida should restore his centripetal force and push forward with constitutional amendment that he has vowed to achieve during his term as LDP president that will end in September this year.

Takashi Arimoto is a Planning Committee member at the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals and the publisher of Monthly Magazine SEIRON at the Sankei Shimbun newspaper.