Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara's resignation over receipt of political donations from a Korean resident underscores a problematic Political Funds Control Law and politicians' obsession with fault-finding to pull others down.
Mr. Maehara resigned Sunday after acknowledging that his funds management body received ¥50,000 annually from 2005 to 2008 and in 2010 from the Korean resident, a 72-year old female owner of a Korean barbecue restaurant in Kyoto, who has been an acquaintance of him since his middle school days. The law prohibits politicians from receiving donations from foreign nationals, foreign corporate bodies and other foreign organizations. The woman did not know about the ban and made the donations in her Japanese name.
Mr. Shoji Nishida, a Liberal Democratic Party Upper House member who took up Mr. Maehara's funds problem in the Diet, had received a tipoff that the restaurant hangs a photo showing Mr. Maehara and the woman together. It appears that this led him to consider targeting Mr. Maehara for possible misconduct. He found that the cooking license in the restaurant carried the woman's Korean name and later examined reports filed by Mr. Maehara's funds management body.