School scandal may affect Abe’s position

TOKYO: Japan’s Finance Ministry proposed crafting a cover story with a school operator at the heart of a political scandal to justify a discount in the price of public land sold to the school, a ministry official said yesterday.

The admission is likely to increase opposition parties’ calls for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to resign over the scandal involving the sale of stateowned land to school operator Moritomo Gakuen, which had ties to Abe’s wife.

The affair, along with other government missteps, is clouding Abe’s chance of winning a third threeyear term as leader of his Liberal Democratic Party. Victory in a September party vote would put him on track to become Japan’s longest serving premier as long as his coalition controls parliament.

Following reports of the cover story, Abe yesterday repeated earlier statements in parliament that he and his wife were not involved in the land sale and said there was no evidence indicating they were involved.

‘‘Last year on Feb. 20 a finance bureau employee contacted Moritomo Gakuen’s lawyer . . . and suggested saying a lot of money was spent on the removal of rubbish and thousands of trucks were used,’’ Mitsuru Ota, head of the Finance Ministry’s finance bureau, told parliament.

‘‘Moritomo’s lawyer did not take any action on this phone call. It was wrong for us to ask Moritomo Gakuen to say something that was not true,’’ Ota said, adding that the attempt to cook up a story was ‘‘highly embarrassing’’. — Reuters