Education Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi confirmed Tuesday that lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party made enquiries to his ministry about a school lecture given by a former top bureaucrat who has accused Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of favoritism, but he denied that this amounted to political interference.
Hayashi told a news conference that the lawmakers' actions were not behind the ministry's subsequent decision to ask the education board in Nagoya — which oversees the junior high school where the lecture took place last month — questions about the event's purpose and content.
The lecturer, Kihei Maekawa, alleged last year that Abe's office influenced a government decision to approve a new veterinary department at a university run by one of the prime minister's close friends.