The head of a right-wing school operator in Japan testified yesterday he had received 1mn yen ($9,000) in an envelope from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s wife. Yasunori Kagoike, the head of the Moritomo Gakuen education group, also told parliament there was “probably” involvement by politicians in his acquisition of public land at a bargain price for his nationalistic school.
The scandal has pulled Abe’s public opinion poll numbers down and grown to ensnare both his wife and Defence Minister Tomomi Inada.
Some analysts say it threatens to bring down Abe’s government. Kagoike serves as a director of the Osaka branch of Nippon Kaigi, a right-wing political group that includes 260 conservative lawmakers, including Abe and Inada.
At issue is an 8,770 sq m plot of land in the western city of Toyonaka. The group bought the land in June 2016 for a fraction of its appraised value. The government explained the cost difference by saying that land clean-up activities had been deducted from the sale price.
Yesterday, Kagoike reiterated his claim that he had received 1mn yen from Akie Abe in 2015. She told him the donation was from her husband Shinzo Abe, Kagoike said.
“I clearly remember it because that was a very honourable thing,” he said. The money was paid on the same day Akie Abe was invited to make a speech at the group’s ultra-conservative kindergarten, for which she was paid 100,000 yen.
She was also named honorary principal of the now-defunct planned primary school. At the kindergarten children memorise the 1890 Imperial Rescript, which was used to promote emperor-centred and militaristic education before and during World War II.
The government’s top spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, denied that the premier and his wife donated the money. Abe has said he had nothing to do with the land purchase, saying he “would quit as prime minister and a lawmaker” if he or his wife were found to be involved in the deal. Akie Abe stepped down from her honorary position following the revelation of the scandal.
Following her resignation, Akie Abe exchanged e-mails with Kagoike’s wife, which could be taken as an attempt to silence them about her involvement, he said.
Kagoike decided to give sworn testimony in parliament because the premier made a 180-degree turn in attitude toward the group, he said.
He believed the couple has supported the establishment of the school. The opposition urged Akie Abe to testify under oath in parliament,
but the premier’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party rejected the idea.
Inada has also come under fire for her relations with the operator as she at first said she had never represented the group in her former career as a lawyer. However, the minister had to retract her remark and apologized after court records showed she had appeared in court representing the operator in a 2004 lawsuit.
The opposition accused Inada of lying and called for her resignation. The operator’s kindergarten made headlines recently after it handed out copies of a statement slurring ethnic Koreans and Chinese, saying they had “evil ideas.”
The kindergarten was also accused of abusing its pupils.