Japanese political parties collected 151.8 billion yen in donations, fees and government subsidies in 1999, down 18.6 percent, or 34.7 billion yen, from the year before, the largest decline since the government began tracking the statistic in 1976.
According to the Home Affairs Ministry survey, which will be officially released today, the figure for 1999 was collected by a total of 4,251 political parties and other related organizations, including support groups for individual politicians.
By comparison, the 11 political parties in the Diet together with individual politicians spent 139.6 billion yen, down 21.2 percent from the previous year.