Shoichi Nakagawa, the Japanese finance minister who was forced to resign after slurring his way through a news conference, has been found dead in his home in Tokyo.
The 56-year-old was discovered Sunday morning a few days after also losing his parliamentary seat in recent elections.Police said they were trying to determine the cause of death, but no signs of violence and no suicide note.
Nakagawa quit his job in February after appears to be intoxicated during a press conference at a G7 meeting in Rome.He later blamed the incident on a combination of jetlag, cold medicine and a "few drinks" of wine.
Stripped of his parliamentary seat, Mr Nakagawa campaign for election platform promise to stop drinking, but was defeated by the Democratic Party of Japan candidate.
He was one of the most prominent members of the Liberal Democratic Party lost their seats before the election on 30 August.
His death ends one of the most influential political dynasties in Japan. Father of Mr. Nakagawa, Ichiro was in a whisker of winning the presidency of the LDP in 1983 and thus in the Premier League. After his defeat, committed suicide in a hotel room.
Mr. Nakagawa seat he inherited from his father in the northern island of Hokkaido, and quickly rose through the party hierarchy. He was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries in 1998, before becoming Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. In September 2008 was appointed Minister of Finance and financial services.
He had also built a reputation as a speaker Blunt - once described North Korea as "a land of fear" - and a dyed in the wool conservatives. But rumors of a problem with alcohol habit also begins to gain credibility.
In 2000, after winning an election, became famous, can not sign a round-eye in a daruma "doll, a traditional sign that a wish come true.
In television footage of a press conference in 2006, is also an obstacle that came out of a government car, go tottering down the hall and then appeared red faces when he took his tie at the beginning of the meeting.
In another incident in October last year, seemed to Mr. Nakagawa 15 minutes late for a press conference tomorrow, no detailed information on measures to stabilize markets and the stock plunged to its lowest level since the bursting of the bubble economy in 1990.
But his performance was in conflict with Rome, which was the final nail in the coffin of his political ambitions. Nakagawa had difficulty concentrating on the interrogation of journalists and attempted to establish a question the Governor Bank of Japan, who sat beside him, said the central bank rate goes from zero to 0.25 percent by weight.
"But it is still very low," went out.
He was also claiming that Japan had promised to provide the ADB with 1 billion U.S. dollars, which it did not.His body was found by his wife in the bedroom at his home in Tokyo yesterday morning, face down on a bed in his pajamas.
Former political allies expressed regret over the death of Mr. Nakagawa said that it would have been an important element in efforts to rebuild the party after the election fiasco.
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