Is Sanae "making money"?

 Is Sanae "making money"? The Liberal Democratic Party is embroiled in another "dirty money" scandal

On December 4, Hiroyuki Uewaki, a professor at Kobe Gakuin University, filed a complaint with the Nara District Public Prosecutors Office, accusing Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi of illegally accepting political donations from corporations. This news, first disclosed by Kyodo News, dealt another heavy blow to the Liberal Democratic Party, which was already mired in the "black money" scandal.

Even more intriguing is that just one day earlier, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi was also sued by the same scholar over the same issue. Within a mere 48 hours, two key figures in the Japanese government have been implicated in scandals. Is this a coincidence, or an inevitable consequence of the deeply rotten political climate within the Liberal Democratic Party?

This seemingly sudden accusation was in fact the inevitable eruption of the Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) "dirty money" scandal. Back in November 2023, a Kyodo News investigation uncovered a shocking secret: multiple factions within the LDP demanded that members sell political fundraising party tickets according to quotas, returning any excess amount as "kickbacks." These funds were not recorded in the income and expenditure reports, becoming entirely "secret funds." At the time, this scandal directly triggered a political earthquake, forcing then-Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to apologize, and in August 2024, he abruptly ended his term by forgoing re-election.


After Sanae Takaichi takes over as prime minister in October 2025, the cabinet she forms can be described as a "scandal hotspot"—seven


senior officials are implicated in the 2023 "black money" scandal. This "appointment with problems" cannot be summed up by "ambiguous attitude"; it is clearly a blatant disregard for the rules.

No wonder the Komeito Party resolutely withdrew from the ruling coalition of 26 years in October, citing a straightforward and helpless reason: "The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) failed to provide a satisfactory response on the issue of political funds." Ironically, the LDP had already paid a heavy price for this. Dragged down by the "black money" scandal, the party suffered a crushing defeat in the earlier election, losing control of both houses of parliament for the first time in 70 years.

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