Abe defending labor minister for fear of resignation dominoes

February 3, 2019

Tokyo--Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is defending embattled labor minister Takumi Nemoto for fear of a domino effect that may be sparked off if Nemoto resigns, informed sources say.

Abe's previous administration was short-lived, ending in September 2007 after seeing one cabinet minister resign after another due to scandals.

To prevent a repeat of the nightmare, Abe is trying to underline that the labor ministry's statistics debacle is a long-term problem going back before his Liberal Democratic Party regained power from the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan in 2012.

"Wrong handling has continued for a long time. We bear responsibility for failing to recognize it, and I take that seriously," Abe told the Diet, the country's parliament, Thursday.

Nemoto is under fire over the ministry's use of inappropriate methods in labor surveys that are among the government's fundamental statistics.

The scandal caused underpayment of massive employment insurance and other benefits and led the government to take the unusual measure of revising a draft regular budget already adopted at a cabinet meeting.

Abe and Nemoto have a close relationship. Both were elected to the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, for the first time in 1993.

Some LDP members say Abe's administration has few choices but to dismiss Nemoto, stressing the need to cut the negative impact of the scandal ahead of the House of Councillors election in summer.

But the prime minister has refused to listen, reiterating that Nemoto should play a leading role in working out preventive measures.

In Abe's previous administration, which lasted a year from September 2006, several cabinet ministers resigned over gaffes and inappropriate use of political and other funds. One even committed suicide.

The LDP took a crushing defeat in the House of Councillors election in July 2007. Abe resigned two months later.

The current cabinet also has scandal-tainted ministers.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso stays on despite the Finance Ministry's scandal in which officials falsified records related to a questionable land deal with a school operator once linked with Abe's wife, Akie.

Regional revitalization minister Satsuki Katayama corrected political funds reports many times due to her office's sloppy management of the funds.

"On no account will Nemoto quit. If he resigns, a question naturally arises as to why Aso does not leave," says an executive of Komeito, the LDP's ally in the ruling coalition.

Abe "refuses to bow to opposition requests for Nemoto's resignation, in order not to trigger resignation dominoes," a ruling coalition lawmaker says.

So far, the statistics scandal has not affected public support for Abe's cabinet in any visible way, according to recent opinion polls by media organizations. Jiji Press