The selection of the next president of Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) is part of personnel affairs at Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai), boasts Yoshiyuki Kasai, chairman of JR Tokai, who has close ties with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The biggest task facing the Abe-Kasai affiliation is to choose the successor to incumbent NHK President Masayuki Matsumoto, himself a former JR Tokai president.

But a person who has served as a member of the NHK Board of Governors expressed his anger when he said, on condition of strict anonymity, that while Abe appointed people close to him to posts like the governor of the Bank of Japan and the director general of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, his unjustifiable intervention in the selection of the NHK president is of different dimensions.

"Abe is trying to transform NHK to suit his needs," he said, "which would be a threat to the freedom of broadcasting, which must be impartial and nonpartisan, and jeopardize democracy at its foundation."