Focusing on Prime Minister’s Explanation

Having received constant pressure from the people wanting to know the truth, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reluctantly accepted the request of the opposite parties for testimony on Kake Gakuen scandal in a committee of each House in the Diet. The core of the issue is how Abe has been involved in a decision of selecting Kake Gakuen, owned by his close friend, Kotaro Kake, for new veterinary school. There are three points to discuss in the testimony.

The first question is whether the decision had been made before the process of selection. It was Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology that had the power to select next veterinary school. But, the Ministry had been pressured to choose Kake Gakuen for next veterinary school by the staffs in Prime Minister’s Official Residence. “This is what the highest level of the Official Residence is saying,” was the words of a Cabinet Office staff to the Ministry.

It is doubted that some conditions were added in the selection for excluding other colleges. The staffs decided that new veterinary school should be built only in an area without another, which excluded Kyoto Sangyo University. They also required opening new veterinary school in April 2018. As the result, only Kake Gakuen could apply to new veterinary school. Former Vice-Minister of the Ministry, Kihei Maekawa, testified in the Diet that the process was too unclear and he had an impression that Kake Gakuen had already been chosen.

The second question is whether Prime Minister’s Official Residence was actually involved in it. Maekawa argues that an Advisor for Prime Minister, Hiroto Izumi, brought him the decision on behalf of Prime Minister last September. Izumi has not confirmed the meeting with Maekawa and denied any direction from Prime Minister. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, Koichi Hagiuda, also set a time limit of April 2018. Hagiuda turned the story down as an inaccurate personal memorandum.

The third question is whether Kake Gakuen had cleared conditions for new veterinary school. It is said that there were four conditions: having brand-new curriculum for educating veterinarian, demand for new type of veterinarian such as expert in life science, not applicable for existing colleges and viewpoints for all over Japan considering demands for veterinarian. While Maekawa argued that supply of veterinarians had been sufficient, Minister for Local Revitalization, Kozo Yamamoto, indicated that they were demanded in some area. Whether new veterinary school is really needed is still not unclear.

Maekawa unequivocally told that the policy was distorted by pressure from Prime Minister’s Official Residence. Abe has to explain what made the pressure delivered.