Former Finance Minister Found Dead

The first newspaper website I opened today surprised me deeply. The headline was shouting that Former Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa had been found dead at his Tokyo home. He was 56. I believe many people instantly suspected a suicide case here provided the embarrassment and disgrace he suffered after his “I was not drunk” performance in a Rome press conference in February and his subsequent defeat in the general election in August. But it doesn’t seem the case. The police are still investigating the cause of his death. His own father, also an LDP politician, committed suicide at the age of 57.