Your Party says its former chief Yoshimi Watanabe broke no laws when he borrowed ¥800 million from a cosmetics company chairman just ahead of the 2010 and 2012 elections without reporting the loans as political funds. Yet the fact that his conduct is being questioned points to the inadequacy of current laws on ensuring transparency in the flow of political funds.
Watanabe resigned in early April as head of the small party he founded in 2009 — days after the massive loans from DHC Corp. Chairman Yoshiaki Yoshida were exposed in media reports. The party has since carried out an in-house probe of how Watanabe borrowed and spent the money. A report released by the party last week concluded that Watanabe did not break either the political funds control law or the public offices election law.
Initially Watanabe insisted that he borrowed the money as an individual and denied that he used the loan for political or campaign purposes — even though Yoshida himself told the media that Watanabe specifically asked for the loans to finance the party's campaigns in the July 2010 Upper House election and the December 2012 Lower House election. Watanabe later changed his story and stated that the money was used to finance his party's campaign in the elections and other political activities.
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