The already heavy pressure on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka had just risen another notch before he apparently decided to take his life Monday afternoon.
The beleaguered farm minister, attempting to outrun various political fund scandals that had followed him for years, had just learned that some fund management and other bodies linked to his office had received 13 million yen in donations from 14 contractors in his home prefecture of Kumamoto. They had won public works orders from Japan Green Resources Agency, a forestry management entity affiliated with his ministry that was suspected of rigging bids.
It was the same fund body that was found in March to have booked a total of more than 28 million yen in "utility costs" over a five-year period ending in 2005 even though the 62-year-old House of Representatives member was living in an expense-free official parliamentary office.