Japan's farm minister, Toshikatsu Matsuoka has killed himself after being implicated in a series of political funding scandals.
Mr Matsuoka was found unconscious in his room at a residential complex for parliamentarians in central Tokyo. Media reports said he had attempted to hang himself in the room.
Media reports have linked Matsuoka to a number of political fund scandals, including a case in which he had declared substantial office expenditures when his office was in fact rent-free. He had repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
Mr Matsuoka's death comes less than two months before an election for parliament's upper house, a key test for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government.
It adds to Mr Abe's problems as his public support rate slumped to its lowest level since he took office last September, according to two newspaper polls published today.
They found Mr Abe's chances of losing his majority in the upper house after elections in July was increasing.
A loss in the July poll would not automatically require Mr Abe to step down because the more powerful lower chamber chooses the premier. But it could make him a lame duck and would increase calls within his own party for him to resign, some analysts said.
Only 32 per cent of voters who responded to a weekend survey by the Mainichinewspaper backed Mr Abe, down 11 points from April, while a separate poll by the Nikkeibusiness newspaper put the prime minister's support rate at 41 per cent, down 12 points.
The Mainichisurvey also showed that 42 per cent of voters want the main opposition Democratic Party to win the July election, compared with 33 per cent who want Mr Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party to win.
Mr Abe's administration has come under fire after the Social Insurance Agency, which manages the pension system, acknowledged that data on 50 million premium payments had been mixed up.
The failure to keep track of the payments means some people are probably getting smaller pensions than they are entitled to.