(Bloomberg) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe got a warning sign that a ballooning scandal won’t go away any time soon: a rare interrogation from lawmakers from his own party.
The premier and his deputy, Finance Minister Taro Aso, were compelled in quick succession Wednesday to deny they ordered changes to documents related to the heavily discounted sale of public land to an Abe family acquaintance. The pointed queries weren’t from an opposition lawmaker, but a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
“It’s clear from looking at the documents before they were altered that my wife and I had no role to play,” Abe told parliament session boycotted by opposition lawmakers.
QuickTake: The School Scandal Haunting Japan Prime Minister Abe
The exchange on the floor of the Diet’s upper chamber showed how quickly Abe’s position has unraveled. In just two weeks, he has gone from a solid bet for the title of Japan’s longest-serving prime minister to battling to preserve his administration.
Things first took a turn last month, when Abe was forced to drop a key element of his labor reforms after hundreds of errors in supporting data were found. That was followed by twin blows from U.S. President Donald Trump, who announced tariffs that hit Japanese metal exports and undercut Abe’s hard-line on North Korea by agreeing to talks with Kim Jong Un.
While Abe has survived several political crises -- returning to power in 2012 after resigning the premiership amid a series of scandals in 2007 -- he’s now facing one that hits him directly. Questions over whether Abe’s government sold land to school operators on the cheap have dominated Japan’s media, with new details emerging daily.
“It’s the biggest crisis of Abe’s premiership so far,” said Koichi Nakano, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo. Nakano said there was little chance of Abe winning a LDP leadership election later this year and staying on.
“It’s a question not of if, but when Aso goes -- and that could be the start of a domino effect,” Nakano said. “Each time he goes through a crisis, people are left with an increasing feeling of being stuck with him. There was ‘Abe fatigue’ even before this exploded.”
Even business leaders, who have generally welcomed Abe’s push for looser monetary policy and a weaker yen, have criticized him over the scandal.
“This is a serious threat to democracy,” Yoshimitsu Kobayashi, chairman of Japan’s influential business lobby Keizai Doyukai, told reporters Tuesday. “If it were a private company -- no matter if they knew of the impropriety or not -- the leader would resign.”
Drop in Support
Polling data tracked by Bloomberg Economics’ Yuki Masujima shows Abe’s support slipping before survey data that accounts for the latest revelations.
Abe survived huge protests and a slide in his approval ratings in 2015 after pushing through controversial legislation to expand the powers of Japan’s military. Last summer, his numbers again fell into the mid-20s in some polls during a separate cronyism scandal.
Abe emerged from his troubles last year -- winning a landslide election victory in October -- in part by taking an uncompromising line against Kim over his regime’s launch of two missiles over Japan. But North Korea probably won’t be enough to distract the Japanese public from concerns closer to home.
A Kyodo News report saying that Abe was considering an about-face and holding a summit with Kim was overshadowed Wednesday by coverage of Abe’s denials on the Diet floor. Abe’s top spokesman declined to comment on the article, saying instead that Japan was considering its approach to Pyongyang “from the perspective of what will be most effective.”
Shadow Shogun
The current scandal is particularly damaging because of Aso’s role overseeing the Finance Ministry, which has admitted to doctoring the land sale documents. The finance minister has his own constituency within the ruling party and could back another candidate in a leadership election later this year, if forced to step down, Nakano said.
“And after Abe goes, they will compete to see who can be the kingmaker, the shadow shogun,” Nakano said.