Japan's cabinet support drops over land scandal

TOKYO - Support for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet slipped further over a shady land deal scandal here, with the majority of the respondents considering the government not doing enough to clear up the issue, according to a Kyodo News poll released on Sunday.

According to the news agency's telephone survey over the weekend, support for the cabinet dropped to 52.4 percent, down 3.3 percentage points from a survey on March 11 to March 12, and down 9.3 percentage points compared to a month ago.

About 82.5 percent of the respondents said the government has not done enough to clear away suspicions surrounding the scandal, while only 10.7 percent said the government has made enough explanations.

Meanwhile, 62.6 percent said they were not convinced with Abe's denial of any involvement by himself or his wife Akie in the cut-price land deal. Only 28.7 percent said they were convinced that neither of the Abes was involved.

More than half of them said Akie Abe should testify under oath in parliament, while 42.8 percent said it was not necessary.

An earlier poll by Nippon News Network showed that the support rate for the cabinet dropped to 47.6 percent, down 7.3 percentage points from last month, while the disapproval rate increased 6.9 percentage points to 32.9 percent.

There has been an escalating furor surrounding Moritomo Gakuen for a cut-price land deal for the operator to purchase a plot of land from the government at a massively discounted price with the land to be used to build a new elementary school.

Abe's wife, Akie, was supposed to serve as honorary principal of the would-be school, but has since stepped down as the scandal widened and video of the school's nationalist agenda began to be beamed across social media platforms and regular broadcasting sites.

Sworn testimony

Yasunori Kagoike, head of the school operator, gave sworn testimony in both chambers of parliament on Thursday stating that he thinks the land deal involved "politicians' intervention".

He presented to parliament a fax between him and Akie Abe's aide, Saeko Tani, saying the fax was evidence of the fact that Tani had made inquiries to the Finance Ministry about the land on his behalf.

He also said Akie Abe gave him an envelope containing 1 million yen ($8,900) on behalf of her husband before giving a speech at a kindergarten run by the school operator on Sept 5, 2015.

Abe on Friday denied that he or his wife Akie were involved in the murky land deal and said the testimony by Kagoike was regrettable and untrue.

Japan's opposition parties, while saying Kagoike's testimony was "one-sided," called for Akie Abe and some other key figures to be summoned to parliament to give sworn testimony.