Japan's Abe mired in cronyism scandal, facing increasing calls for cabinet's resignation

Widening scandal

Lined up in front of parliamentary buildings in Tokyo, the impressively eye-catching banners with such slogans as "Abe and Aso have no shame!""Abe's cabinet should step down!" were firmly held by thousands of protesters shaking their fists in anger.

The protest was triggered by Abe's denial of either his or his wife's involvement in the cut-price land deal.

"I didn't know about even the existence of the finance ministry's internal settlement documents. I couldn't order the rewriting of them," Abe told an upper house budget committee session Monday.

Finance Minister Taro Aso, also deputy prime minister, said that a few officials in the ministry's financial bureau altered the documents without Abe's knowledge.

Aso's claim obviously has failed to blind the protesters.

"The government tries to hide the truth and distract people's attention from the scandal. We won't allow that to happen. We will continue to express our anger on behalf of the people," said Shingo Fukuyama, a member of a civil group that organized the protest.

The protesters' opinions were also mirrored in recent media polls, which saw a plunge in the approval ratings of Abe's cabinet, with a majority of people believing that Abe can hardly absolve himself from the widely reviled document alteration.

According to a Kyodo News poll released on Sunday, the approval rate for the prime minister's cabinet dropped to 38.7 percent, down 9.4 percentage points from a previous survey conducted on March 3-4, while the disapproval rate stood at 48.2 percent, up 9.2 percentage points.

According to the poll, some 43.8 percent of the respondents said Abe should step down after more evidence came to light about the adverse impact of the shady land deal, and a total of 66.1 percent said Abe should be held accountable for the finance ministry's tampering of documents.

Another survey by the Asahi Shimbun showed that the cabinet's approval rate has plunged to 31 percent, the lowest ever in the newspaper's polling since Abe re-took office as prime minister in 2012.

Abe's approval rate was down 13 percentage points from 44 percent in a previous poll, while the non-support rate rose to 48 percent from 37 percent.