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On April 23, the DPJ Political Reform Promotion Headquarters, chaired by Vice President Katsuya Okada, held a general meeting at party headquarters to engage in discussions with a view to drafting legislation on hereditary politicians and political donations from corporations and other donations, to be submitted to the Diet during the current session.
Okada gave an opening address in which he called on the assembled Diet members to carve out a direction for the party regarding limits on hereditary politicians and reform of political donations, with the aim of submitting legislation to the Diet during the current session. He stressed, “We have opened executive meetings of this headquarters on various occasions and have distributed a questionnaire to all DPJ Diet members, using the responses as the basis for our discussions. Considering these facts, the time has come for us to produce a clear direction and so we have called this general meeting.”
During the meeting, the results of the aforementioned questionnaire were reported and a variety of opinions expressed regarding the appropriate settings for the definition of hereditary politicians, on the organisations that would be “inherited” by such politicians, and on the length of the interim period before imposition of a comprehensive ban on corporate and organizational donations.
Following the end of the meeting, HQ Secretary General, Yoshihiko Noda announced the content of the discussions to reporters. With regard to hereditary politicians, he explained that it had been agreed that the party would create internal rules so that “limits should be placed on the children, spouses and so on of Diet members running consecutively for office from the same electoral district as their parent, spouse and the like.” He added that it had been decided to determine party policy, having discussed again the exact relationship which would be classified as “hereditary”, with third-degree kinship having been mentioned as a possible benchmark. Furthermore, with regard to restrictions on funding, he said that the meeting had approved drafting of legislation that would prohibit candidates from inheriting funds through fund management organisations, and revealed that discussions had centred on limiting the organisations to which this would be applied to political organisations relating to politicians.
With regard to political fund reform, Noda announced that the meeting had approved “the comprehensive prohibition, following a certain period, of donations from, and the purchase of party tickets by corporations and organisations.” He said that the interim period was still under discussion, but was likely to be one, three or five years.
Noda further explained that a proposal for banning donations from corporations involved in public works projects and creating a registry for donations and party ticket purchases was to be discussed further as a possible interim measure until a complete ban on donations and party ticket purchases could be implemented. He also referred to promoting the spread of individual donations, stating that the meeting had agreed to move toward “making donations up to a certain level eligible for tax deductions.”
Noda ended by saying “After having established the points needing further debate following these discussions, we will hold another general meeting next week to finalise our proposal, with the aim of having it included in the party manifesto and of submitting legislation during the current Diet session.”
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