Abe repentant for parliament confusion over scandals

April 27, 2018

Tokyo- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed his regret on Thursday over the ongoing parliamentary confusion that partly resulted from favoritism allegations against him involving school operators.

"I feel straightforwardly responsible for creating a situation in which parliamentary deliberations have been dominated by issues other than policy debates," Abe told a meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament, held in the morning.

The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and five other opposition parties boycotted the meeting, in a show of protest against the responses of the government and the ruling camp to a series of problems, including alleged sexual harassment by the top bureaucrat at the Ministry of Finance, who resigned this week.

"Staying fully conscious of the wary eyes of the Japanese public, I will step up efforts to give explanations as in-depth as possible," Abe said.

The opposition camp has requested sworn parliamentary testimony by Tadao Yanase, former secretary to Abe, about the cronyism scandal concerning a project to open an university faculty of veterinary medicine by Kake Educational Institution, headed by a friend of Abe.

The prime minister told a meeting in the afternoon of the Budget Committee of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, that he wants Yanase to disclose everything he knows in response to various questions that have been raised.

In a memo created by an Ehime prefectural government employee, Yanase, now vice minister for international affairs at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, was quoted as saying at a meeting with local officials that the plan to set up the animal medicine faculty in a national strategic special deregulation zone in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, was "a prime minister-related matter."

In connection with a recent remark made by a senior official of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party suggesting the possibility of Abe dissolving the Lower House for a snap election, the prime minister said in the Lower House committee meeting, "I'd like to make it clear that dissolution and a snap election are not at all in my mind."

The parliamentary committee meetings were attended only by the LDP, its Komeito ally and opposition Nippon Ishin no Kai.

The six opposition parties that boycotted the meetings are demanding that Minister of Finance Taro Aso resign over the alleged sexual harassment by the top MOF bureaucrat and the MOF's manipulation of documents related to a controversial cut-price state land sale to Moritomo Gakuen, a school operator once linked to Abe's wife, Akie.

Kiyomi Tsujimoto, parliamentary affairs chief of the CDPJ, showed a resolve not to make concessions. "We're steering parliamentary business with a strong determination," she told reporters.

Instead of attending the committee meetings, the six opposition parties held a joint hearing on the sexual harassment issue by summoning MOF officials to grill Abe's administration further over the matter. Jiji Press