Education ministry documents point to senior officials close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe citing the "prime minister's intent" in pushing for a deregulatory measure to approve the opening of a new veterinary medicine department at a university run by a school operator headed by Abe's longtime friend. Abe rules out any favoritism on his part, and the officials deny (or do not remember) putting such pressure on the ministry. Top officials of the ministry now cast doubts on the credibility of the latest document to emerge — supposedly compiled by its ranks — that implicates Abe's close aide in the case. The charges that fly over the Kake Gakuen scandal keep going in circles.

The public remains mystified as to what really happened. Nearly three-quarters of respondents in a Kyodo News poll last weekend said they were not convinced by the government's explanation that its policy over the issue was never distorted by favoritism, while almost 85 percent replied they do not think the relevant facts have been made clear by the government's probe. The Abe administration should accept the opposition camp's demand for further Diet inquiry into the case.

In the government's deregulatory project subsidized by local authorities, the Okayama-based Kake Gakuen, headed by Abe's close friend Kotaro Kake, plans to open a new veterinary medicine department — the first to be launched in more than 50 years — in a university it runs in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, next spring. It has been a long time since the education ministry has approved such an opening on the grounds that the nation has a sufficient supply of veterinarians to meet demand.