Japan's Liberal Democratic Party's "black gold" scandal continues to ferment, and Kishida**'s approval rating has continued to decline since the resignation of four cabinet ministers last week. This week, the Tokyo District Prosecutor's Office searched a number of offices related to the ** faction and the 2nd order faction, further intensifying the attention of the incident. This time, the "black gold" refers to the kickbacks taken by the Liberal Democratic Party, especially the ** faction of parliamentarians, on ticket revenues. In order to raise political funds, various factions hold political gatherings every year and raise funds by selling tickets. If the required number of tickets are not sold, the Member will need to pay the amount himself/herself, but if the excess number is sold, the excess will be returned to the Councillor. **At least 10 of the 10 members of the faction were involved in the case for more than 10 million yen. Combined with the kickbacks of all members of the faction for nearly five years, the total amount is expected to reach 500 million yen.
In addition to the ** faction, the second-order faction and the Kishida faction are also involved in this matter, but the amount and scope of influence are smaller. The owner of a Tokyo company said that he bought 20 tickets every year from 2019 to 2021 from Seiko Hashimoto, a member of the ** faction, and each ticket cost 20,000 yen, with a cumulative amount of 1.2 million yen. According to Japanese law, individuals or organizations that purchase tickets more than 200,000 yen must be recorded, but Hashimoto's report does not mention the name of the owner, indicating that the 1.2 million yen was returned to Hashimoto as a kickback.
Similar cases are not uncommon in Japan. In fact, Japan's "money politics" is comparable to that of the United States, except that the latter is openly corrupt and can continue to lie even if it is exposed. The difference is that Japan** prefers to operate in the dark, and no one knows exactly how much money is flowing into politics, but there is no doubt that the amount is huge. It is recorded that in the 80s of the last century, Japanese companies spent as much as 32 billion dollars on entertaining politicians. This "money politics" is not the first time it has emerged. There have been a series of scandals in Japanese history, such as the Showa Denko incident, the shipbuilding scandal, the Lockheed affair and the Rikulut incident, all of which involved political bribery. A number of prime ministers and cabinet ministers have also been implicated.
In order to curb corruption, in 1993, Japan introduced the "Political Funds Regulation Law", which restricted the behavior of politicians to accept bribes to a certain extent, but the effect was not significant. Since then, a number of cabinet ministers have been forced to resign in the ** incident. It is worth noting that the amount of money involved in this "black gold" scandal is very large and the scope is extensive, and the Japanese domestic ** even calls it the biggest crisis facing the Democratic Party since the Lockheed incident, which shows its seriousness.
Observers believe that against the backdrop of higher incomes for parliamentarians, the main responsibility for the Liberal Democratic Party's black-gold scandal lies with former Prime Minister Shinzo. ** The Cabinet's outstanding feature is that "the government is high and the party is low", that is, power is concentrated in the Prime Minister's Office, and the overall influence of the LDP is declining. Due to the authority of ** Jinsan, each faction does not need to worry about raising money, but once *** faction needs to find its own way to raise funds. Therefore, it is reasonable to be able to make more profits before **. In addition, the timing of the black gold scandal** is usually at a time when Japanese society is dissatisfied with **, which is more likely to arouse public attention and indignation.
The salaries of Japanese parliamentarians are relatively high among developed countries. In order to prevent corruption, Japan** has introduced the Political Funds Regulation Act and increased subsidies for members of the Diet. The annual bonus and salary of the legislators are about 1.1 million yuan, the expenses for publicity and accommodation are about 600,000 yuan per year, and the legislative research fund is about 390,000 yuan per year. In addition, Japan** also distributes grants to political parties, and LDP lawmakers receive about 2 million yuan a year. Councillors also enjoy free high-speed rail tickets, plane tickets and other benefits, which can be said to be worry-free about eating and drinking. Therefore, under such a high salary, Japanese politicians still did not stop the occurrence of the black gold scandal, in which former Prime Minister Shinzo took the main responsibility.
In short, the continued fermentation of the Liberal Democratic Party's "black gold" scandal has had a considerable impact on Japanese society. Public dissatisfaction with ** and politicians is growing, and trust in Japanese politics is decreasing. However, we also cannot ignore similar ** scandals in history, and this incident is only the tip of the iceberg. For Japanese politicians, it is important not only to expose and deal with existing corruption problems, but also to promote systemic and structural reforms to reduce the breeding of corruption.
Now it's your turn, what do you think about the black gold issue in Japanese politics?What do you think can be done to solve this problem?Please leave your comments and let's discuss together.