Japan PM takes blame for loss of trust over scandal as polls dive, denies involvement

Tokyo (Reuters): Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his popularity plunging amid a cronyism scandal, took responsibility yesterday (19 March) for a loss of trust in his government, but denied he or his wife had intervened in a land sale to a school operator with ties to his wife.

The finance ministry’s announcement last week that documents about the discounted sale to educational body Moritomo Gakuen had been altered have sparked a political crisis for Abe, as suspicions swirl about a cover-up and opposition parties call for both the premier and Finance Minister Taro Aso to resign.

Interrogated by a parliamentary panel yesterday, Abe denied directing changes to the documents, in which references to Abe, his wife and Aso were removed from the finance ministry’s records of the land sale. He told the panel he had not even known of the documents’ existence. “I did not direct that the documents be altered,” he said. “In fact, I didn’t even know that they existed at all, so how could I have done that?”

Two opinion polls published over the weekend showed Abe’s support diving to its lowest since he took office in December 2012, and others showed a majority of Japanese believed he bore some responsibility for the scandal.

In an apparent nod to those polls, several of which showed his support sinking into the 30% level, Abe acknowledged that public trust had been shaken.

“As head of the government, I keenly feel my responsibility in the matter of the people losing their trust in the administration,” he added. “Ultimately, the responsibility lies with me as prime minister. I would like to apologise once again.” Opposition lawmakers said answers to their questions were unlikely to come from the premier or Aso and renewed their call for Nobuhisa Sagawa, who had headed the division that submitted the documents before he became tax agency chief in July 2017, to testify in parliament.