On February 25, Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae of Japan stated, regarding the controversy over her recent distribution of congratulatory gifts to ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers elected in the House of Representatives election (general election), that she is "aware that there is no legal problem."
According to major Japanese media outlets including the Asahi Shimbun, Prime Minister Takaichi acknowledged at a plenary session of the House of Councillors (upper house) that she had given gifts worth about 30,000 yen (about 280,000 won) per person to 315 Liberal Democratic Party winners in the general election, and made this claim. Japan's Political Funds Control Act prohibits individuals from making donations related to the political activities of politicians, but Prime Minister Takaichi argued that there was no violation of the law because the donation was made by a local party chapter.
She explained that the goods had been donated by the Nara 2nd District chapter, for which she serves as chapter chief, and that the funds had also come from this chapter. In a post on her X account (X, formerly Twitter) the previous day, Prime Minister Takaichi stated, "No public subsidies for political parties were used at all for this expenditure." Public subsidies for political parties are funds distributed by the Japanese government to each party based on its share of the vote and other factors.
She appears to have been arguing that there was nothing particularly problematic because no government budget or similar funds were used to purchase the gifts. Prime Minister Takaichi said that, as for the background to the distribution of the gifts, she intended to encourage the lawmakers and hoped that the gifts would help them in their future parliamentary activities.
The gifts that Prime Minister Takaichi distributed to Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers are so-called "catalog gifts." These are booklet-style gifts that allow the recipient to select and receive the item they want. She wrote on X the previous day, "I did not have time to choose appropriate items for each person, so I gave catalog gifts in the hope that each lawmaker would make their own judgment and choose."
Prime Minister Takaichi did not disclose the total value of the gifts, but Kyodo News reported that, arithmetically, the amount is expected to exceed 9 million yen (about 8.265 million won). Previously, the Liberal Democratic Party suffered a major blow when a faction-centered "slush fund scandal" came to light in 2023, and former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba also faced criticism after distributing gift certificates worth 100,000 yen (about 920,000 won) per person to first-term members of the House of Representatives (lower house) in March last year.
The Japanese government and the coalition partner Japan Innovation Party defended Prime Minister Takaichi in an attempt to prevent the controversy from spreading, but opposition parties strongly criticized her. Ogawa Junya, leader of the centrist reformist coalition, the largest opposition party in the House of Representatives, said, "The ethics and sense of money that lead to scattering gifts around reflect the outdated nature of the Liberal Democratic Party," and criticized the situation as something that "cannot be overlooked." Masayo Tanabu, secretary-general of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, pointed out, "Former Prime Minister Ishiba apologized in the face of public criticism from people suffering from high prices after the distribution of gift certificates, and the gift certificates were returned," adding, "Both then and now, the problems of political funds and high prices have continued."
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