Japan Press Weekly

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2018 March 14 - 20 [POLITICS]

Abe’s wife should explain her involvement in ‘Moritomo’ scandal before Diet

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

Amid the rapid fall in the Abe government’s approval rating, the House of Councilors Budget Committee has carried out intensive deliberations on the issue of the falsification of official documents concerning the abnormally large discount in the national land sale to the school corporation “Moritomo Gakuen”.

In the deliberations, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira and JCP parliamentarian Tatsumi Kotaro pointed out that the most convincing explanation as to why Finance Ministry officials altered the official records regarding the land deal with Moritomo is that they wanted to hide the fact that the deal involved the prime minister and/or his wife, Akie, stressing that Akie’s involvement in the land sale is indisputable.

Ota Mitsuru, Director-General of the Finance Ministry’s Financial Bureau, in response to a question from opposition lawmakers asking why Akie’s name was included in the pre-tampered documents, said that it was because Akie is the first lady. Still, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo denies his responsibility for the alteration of the documents by refusing to admit that the misconduct stemmed from his remarks in the Diet. Commenting on the original documents, Abe became defiant and insisted that it should be obvious that he and his wife had nothing to do with the land sale. In order to reveal the whole picture behind this issue, it is essential to summon Akie to the Diet as a sworn witness.

In recent opinion polls by the media which indicated that Abe Cabinet’s approval rating is falling, the percentages of respondents who think that PM Abe should be blamed for the document falsification were 82% (in the Asahi Shimbun survey), 68% (Mainichi), and 66.1% (Kyodo News). Asahi’s poll found that 72% were not satisfied with Abe’s explanation that he and his wife have no link to the land deal.

Public demand across the country calling for an end to the Abe regime for underhandedly altering official documents and attempting to fool the Diet as well as the general public is increasing. All Abe Cabinet members must resign.

Past related articles:
> Opposition parties will pursue gov't responsibility for deleting from official records Abe's wife involvement in state-owned land sale to 'Moritomo Gakuen' [March 13, 2018]