TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th October, 2019) Isshu Sugawara, Japan's minister of economy, trade and industry, who has also been in charge of Tokyo's economic cooperation with Moscow, resigned in the wake of claims that he had broken electoral laws by offering gifts to voters in his constituency, media reported on Friday.
The claims emerged in Japanese media earlier this week. The reports insisted that Sugawara's office had offered money to a bereaved family and sent it flowers alongside another family. They followed other reports that claimed that back in 2007, Sugawara's campaign team gave melons and crabs, considered to be pricey products in Japan, to voters ahead of the election.
The NHK broadcaster reported that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had accepted Sugawara's resignation.
The outlet noted, however, that offering donations to families at funerals was a Shinto tradition.
