TOKYO, May 26 (Xinhua) -- Japan's opposition parties rallied together Friday to maintain pressure on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe following allegations he may have used his position to exert pressure on the government to approve the building of a new school at a university run by a close friend.
The united incursion follows Kihei Maekawa, a former vice education minister, a day earlier telling a news conference that documents exist linking Abe to the decision to approve the construction of a new, government subsidized veterinary medicine school at Okayama University of Science.
The four top opposition parties concluded that there remained a great deal of suspicion regarding potentially shady procedures for the new school to be built, with Renho, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, stating that her party will meticulously look into the issue further to determine the exact level of impropriety committed by the prime minister and or his office.
The Democratic Party, the Japanese Communist Party, the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party have jointly said that Maekawa should be summoned to the Diet to give sworn testimony as a witness.
Maekawa had previously said that he would give testimony in parliament if summoned and double-down on his knowledge of the evidential documents.
In addition to Maekawa being summoned to parliament, the opposition parties agreed that further deliberations need to be held on the matter at a committee hearing to be attended by Abe.
Abe's government has side-stepped the latest offensive, however, with the Liberal Democratic Party's Diet affairs Chief, Wataru Takeshita, telling his opposite number in the Democratic Party that an initial probe by the education ministry could not confirm the existence of the documents.
Based on this, he said it would be unnecessary to summon Maekawa as a witness despite his willingness to give sworn testimony.
The government's top spokesperson Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga also told a press conference Friday that the documents being referred to were insubstantial and underscored the fact that the education ministry's probe into the matter had largely been concluded.
The initial probe was to investigate documents that may prove that an education ministry advisory panel was currently assessing an application to open the new veterinary school.
The document reportedly suggests that the education ministry was told by the Cabinet Office that the choice for the new school "was heard to have been the prime minister's wish."
The underlying controversy lies in the fact that Okayama University of Science was specifically chosen by the government to open a new veterinary medicine school, for the first time in 50 years, in Ehime Prefecture.
The prefecture is one of Japan's national strategic special economic zones, which has far more relaxed regulations to boost growth in the area, as part of Abe's overall growth strategy.
The university itself is operated by Kake Educational Institution, headed by a close friend of Abe's.
The Democratic Party also maintains that the document shows that negotiations had taken place between the ministry and the Cabinet Office regarding the set timeframe for opening the new school, which was scheduled for April 2018.
One document reportedly states that timeframe is what the highest level of the prime minister's office has said.
Another document mentioned that opening the department at an early juncture was "in line with the prime minister's wishes."
The latest scandal follows Abe, his wife and other ministers being embroiled in an as yet unresolved cut-price state land deal with another private school operator in Osaka.
Moritomo Gakuen, the operator of a nationalist school in Osaka, said it had received a donation and the backing of Abe to open a new school on a piece of land owned by the government and sold to the operator for just a fraction of its appraisal value.
