The most prominent promise made by the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan Hatoyama in the country's most recent election campaign was to change the nation's political culture. The Liberal Democratic Party had been in office almost non-stop for 60 years, and as we all well know: absolute power corrupts absolutely.
International and Japanese experts sometimes raised the question during the campaign whether a change in governing party would lead to fundamental change in the political culture.
Now, Prime Minister Hatoyama has also found himself in trouble in connection with a party finance scandal. Mainichi shinbun reports Hatoyama failed to mention ¥ 1.26 billion (close to US$ 14 mln) in donations from his mother(!) on his tax form (funky family anyway). State-paid secretaries working under the responsibility of the Prime Minister, falsified the cheques and documents concerned to omit the donations from the relevant administration. Such forgery would lead to instantaneous resignation in most EU countries (in the US, you wouldn't even get to serve in the cabinet).
That is a shocking amount of money and from a shocking source as well: how would the Brits react if it were revealed that Gordon Brown received £110k per month from his mother?! He would get slaughtered in the House of Commons!
Don't expect something similar to happen in Japan anytime soon. Little mistakes like these are easily corrected in Tokyo. It goes to show that there's no change you can believe in in Tokyo when it comes to systems of accountability with the ascent of a new party to political power.
Full disclosure: I did a one-month internship with the current Japanese Minister of Interior Affairs Kazuhiro Haraguchi (then one of the DPJ MP's) back in 2007.
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