Those pestiferous donations

Irregularities over political donations continue to annoy main political parties. The Democratic Party of Japan was rattled by the arrest in March of then party leader Ichiro Ozawa's chief secretary on suspicion of illegally handling political donations from two political bodies linked to Nishimatsu Construction Co. Mr. Ozawa resigned as party leader in May. Now the current DPJ leader, Yukio Hatoyama, is in hot water. But irregularities involving Liberal Democratic Party politicians also have surfaced. The situation is putting a drag on Japanese politics.

Mr. Hatoyama has admitted that his office used the names of dead people and those who did not make donations in statements for a fundraising report. Reports of 193 donations totaling ¥21.77 million, made from 2005 to 2008, were misstated. Some 90 names were of dead people and people who did not make donations.

On the LDP side, suspicion has surfaced that Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano's office received ¥55.3 million between 1992 and 2005 from H.S. Futures, a futures trading company, via a dummy political body. It is also suspected that the office of Mr. Yoshimi Watanabe, former administrative reform minister who bolted the LDP, received ¥35.4 million during the same period from the same company through the same dummy political body.

Meanwhile, public prosecutors have brought a fresh criminal charge against Mr. Mikio Kunisawa, former president of Nishimatsu Construction Co., over the purchase of fundraising tickets for an LDP faction led by Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Toshihiro Nikai. The new charge comes after an inquest committee objected to prosecutors' earlier decision not to indict him. Mr. Kunisawa has already been charged with giving ¥5 million in illegal donations to Ozawa's office.

In an effort to assail Mr. Hatoyama, the LDP has set up a project team to probe problems with political donations to him. Yet, at the same time, the LDP takes the position that Mr. Yosano and Mr. Nikai have already fulfilled their responsibility to explain their situations. Both the LPD and the DPJ should realize that people are not satisfied thus far with the explanations given by the politicians involved.