The document forgery scandal shaking Japanese democracy would not have occurred a decade ago, and it is important to understand how and why the Finance Ministry was so deeply corrupted during the Shinzo Abe era.

The Prime Minister’s Office has been gaining strength vis-a-vis the National Diet and the bureaucracy since the 1990s, which was a movement originally led by Ichiro Ozawa, advanced significantly by Junichiro Koizumi, but really brought into its own in the Abe era.

An inquiry found that references to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife were removed from papers relating to a controversial sale of state land.

Taro Aso accepted that the scandal „hurt“ public confidence in the ministry and the government.